


Dawnbreaker

by kaurakahvi



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, NaNoWriMo, Post-World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, Reconciliation, Recovery, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 83,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21646297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaurakahvi/pseuds/kaurakahvi
Summary: Jaina Proudmoore had made many hard decisions in her life, some out of necessity and some out of love and compassion, but never one that had left her so conflicted. The sea surrounding the island she'd chosen to hide on would be her only witness tonight should she break the promise she'd made, but she'd always been true to her word.There was no going back now.
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore/Kael'thas Sunstrider
Comments: 29
Kudos: 58





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I recognise that the Council has made decisions - but given that they're stupid-ass decisions, I’ve elected to ignore all of them. NaNoWriMo 2019.

* * *

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

Which was worse - the pain or the betrayal? Nevermind the forces outside, those useless Alliance scum that had never helped the elves when they’d needed them the most... nevermind the orcs and the troll that were fighting over whatever valuable still remained in the chamber. Nevermind them! The elves - his _own people?_ Did they not know - not understand - that all he’d ever done was for them?

His body felt distant. It had felt that way ever since Delrissa... but even then it was different now. It reminded him of Tempest Keep. Everything now did. Everything had ever since, as if his mind was still stuck in that place, facing death over and over again in his grand, glowing halls. Watching it burn. He could still burn... he could have burned them. With a little more focus, the orc would be nothing but ashes... ashes from which he could yet again be born, like a phoenix rising. He was a phoenix, was he not? Like Al’ar, he too had faced death and come out of it alive, perhaps weakened like a newborn flame but still _alive_ , still with his mind intact. The only thing he had left now, it seemed, was the anger and hurt of seeing _them_ with those who had invaded these sacred grounds. All he’d done for them, and they’d still chosen the enemy. He’d seen their faces before, both of them; former Sunfury, perhaps? Or maybe he’d seen them after the Scourge had ran Quel'Thalas through like a rusty knife, cowering in the ruins of their once beautiful kingdom - a jewel on Azeroth defiled and torn to the ground. But he’d seen them, and now they would be the last thing he’d ever see.

Once again, it was anger that flashed within him. He would have cursed them if he’d had the strength left. In his chest, the fel crystal burned at his flesh, its energies still feeding his dying body altough surely there was nothing left to feed. He knew the inevitable was coming. They’d murdered Delrissa, not that he cared for the demon beyond her usefulness. Demons were lower, too low to consider people; they’d served a purpose for him, for Kil’jaeden. He’d respected the archdemon’s mind. Speaking with him had sometimes brought him back to Dalaran in the years that history now didn’t bother to recall anymore; years of youth and peace, meaningless amongst the numbered wars. He’d been ignorant once, and Kil’jaeden’s presence had once more made him feel like an apprentice. So much to learn... so much power to reach for. And this - _this -_ was the end? He could hear them fighting outside. He was nothing but an objective to complete for this ”Shattered Sun Offensive”, these despicable curs that had intervened at last moment. Nevermind that: it was all for nothing. They couldn’t stop it now, the greater plan at work. They couldn’t possibly get that far. It was impossible. Like his downfall had once been, and now... perhaps it was better this way, although he would have rather chosen a different end for himself.

Pain surged again. It scorched him, twisted his insides, and his sight faded. Did they think him dead already, or simply believe that time would take care of it? They seemed so careless now after their perceived victory, marking down their findings, taking what their filthy pockets could carry. And then... a face appeared, blurred and moving too slowly and leaving a trail of faint glow behind it where the magical light touched fair skin. This blood elf, a priest, regarded him as she slowly crouched down to her knees. No one seemed to mind her. Was anyone else even there anymore? The room was quiet now. Perhaps it was simply her and him - and perhaps he could still find a way to use her. 

”Forgive me, your highness,” she spoke to him.

Forgive her? After she’d used her powers to keep his enemies standing? When he’d most needed her, she’d turned from him and joined _them_ instead. Forgiveness was not what she would get, no, but he couldn’t make these words fall from his lips. Barely even breath could pass through now. The crystal throbbed. Faintly he knew it was the only thing keeping him alive and by the Sunwell he wished to tear it right out of his skin to end it all, but all he could do now was regard this priestess and feel the pure agony of denied death, his back sore, ironically enough, from pressing against the rounded golden edge of the throne behind him. As if he wasn’t yet so utterly so destroyed, so torn that he should have been beyond pains like that of - mundane pains, those small and insignificant nuisances that kept company to those still living. Not long now, he thought; death would come and release him from it all. It was a mere matter of when.

The blood elf pressed her hand against him, her touch lingering before he could truly pinpoint where it had landed. The softness and warmth evaded him in favour of yet another blinding surge of pain; his body craved for quiet, for release, and she was resting her hand all too close to the source of the energy that still kept him alive, burning him with its resonance within her. Next, he felt something familiar; a touch of Light. It trickled into him like liquid through where her hand was touching him, and it eased the pain - was he not beyond that, despite all the fel magic that now coursed through him like blood? The Light still found enough elf in him to heal his flesh. What an odd thought, and perhaps...

”The portal is ready,” another voice called from behind the priest, from much beyond where Kael’thas could focus his gaze.

A male voice; perhaps the other elf who had fought him before. Traitor, like this one. Worthless scum. The pain had subdued, if not significantly then at least enough for him to close his eyes again. It didn’t feel like release, but it was a relief, and he lingered upon it as he felt his body grasped - moved - and then a sharp tug somewhere beyond where his consciousness could reach. Finally, he thought before the world faded around him; he’d waited long enough for this.

* * *


	2. Traitors

* * *

Jaina stood in the darkness with nothing but a glowing orb of fire accompanying her. She knew this was the worst thing she’d ever agreed to do, and in the midst of everything else - with Arthas stirring in the north, and the alterations in the magic she’d felt within herself - but it was too late to reconsider. She could hardly tell them she’d changed her mind now. If she’d made a stupid decision, and she knew she had, then it was so and there was nothing she could do but follow through. Yet Kael’thas had been her friend once. The thought of losing more... even if he seemed beyond saving, beyond all hope of mercy and redemption... should she not at least give him a fighting chance? Could she still convince herself that it was the right thing to do, after everything he’d done, after the choices he’d made? They’d been driven by grief, the same grief she’d felt and shared with him, although his part of the burden had always seemed impossibly large in her eyes, something she hadn’t truly understood when she’d been younger and still so unexperienced. The last words they’d shared years ago were now somehow freshened in her mind and she shifted uneasily, wishing that even a letter had passed between them since, but she knew that he’d been ashamed and she had simply never found the right words to say to him to let him know she understood and that she always had, so it had seemed that this one unpleasant encounter at the darkest of moments had broken whatever uneasy companionship they’d offered each other before then. And briefly after, her thoughts and concerns had been overtaken by her lost beloved - the thought made her bitter now as it always did. The very memory of Arthas was like ice in her belly charging down her guts until she had to shiver against the warm night. 

Slowly, she raised her hand out. A promise was a promise, even when it meant she’d perhaps make the mistake of her lifetime. Being branded a traitor was a concern she couldn’t shake. Few would understand her seemingly misplaced hurt in the face of losing a friend who’d sunken this low. Perhaps it was less about Kael’thas and more about trying to salvage just the faintest glimpse of those better times she’d known; a desperate action by a woman not yet willing to accept her reality. She couldn’t save Arthas. There was nothing she could do to reach him anymore. Whatever magic or sickness had been cast over him, he was gone, but - maybe she hoped she could at least give Kael’thas a clean death, if nothing else. She could hardly be comforted by the theory she’d formed that whatever corrupt magic it was that had revived him after Tempest Keep would still keep him alive now, but although she tried hard to suppress the clinical, cold and detached scholarly side of herself, she couldn’t quiet down the thought that perhaps she would learn something of value from seeing him. Perhaps something that could help others one day, even if it seemed unlikely she could do much for him now.

Fool’s hope and excuses, she scolded herself as a portal swirled into existence before her, first nothing but a blue-green shimmer and then a tear in the shape of reality itself, a gaping arcane wound stretching from here to a place so imbued with protective spells that she felt as if she was physically straining against a crack in solid armour, trying to convince it to open up for her. She could feel herself already exhausted from just this single act, like when she’d been a young girl and first tried to open a portal only into the next room with Antonidas by her side judging her performance, and she’d felt so weak and pathetic in her skin, yet determined - come what may. The room she could now see beyond the portal rippled with gold, and she recognised none of it but knew what it was: the grand elven architecture of the once-revered Magister’s Terrace by the Sunwell Plateau, formerly a place for those with power to practice their arcane arts. Kael’thas had gone there in his weakness, perhaps because it was easy to defend or maybe in the hopes of regaining strength in the asylum provided by a keep built for magisters like him, or... what he had once been. Anxiety flooded Jaina now as she stepped back and she looked away, hoping not to see the two elves beyond the portal, one whom was carrying... him. Yet she knew without looking that they’d enter through, and she had to face it; she saw the ranger first blurrily through the portal and then as if he’d always been standing before her, and he was carrying a body that looked all but dead to her - dead or _worse._ The fel crystal embedded in that body’s chest glowed a faint green light even against the golden glow of Jaina’s fire, and it was that which she focused on, for the moment wiped blank of all other thought. The unnaturalness, the twisted and corrupt nature of what she was seeing made her physically ill and her mind struggled to accept it as real. It was impossible for her to connect even the name of Kael’thas to this wretched being so far twisted from his nature that she all but abandoned the thought, hoping it wouldn’t resurface again. She took another step backwards, then turned and motioned the elf to follow her.

She’d made up her mind, she reminded herself. There was no turning back, no use for regret, and moreover, no room for fear _._

The body didn’t look heavy in the ranger’s arms. It looked emancipated, thin and malnourished. The skin, although hard to accurately examine in the green glow of the crystal piercing it, looked greyish and sickly pale. And there the thought was again, inevitably; this elf didn’t look anything like the prince Jaina remembered, even at his worst and most vulnerable moment that she’d been allowed to spy on. She let herself linger in that denial for the sake of the brief relief it allowed her in her subconscious; if it wasn’t him, then all of this and all of the information she’d had on him for years had been false. He’d never fallen so far at all - he was simply missing, replaced by this... husk.

”This way,” she spoke once they were indoors, and the ranger carrying the body followed her deeper into the mansion. It had been unused for some time but its warmth was still welcoming and after a little cleaning Jaina had made it more than inhabitable. She’d made the servant’s room into a makeshift guest bedroom to prepare for this - it had a wide bed in it, not quite fit for royalty but soft and comfortable enough for an injured man to lie in, and a small double window looking out to the garden behind the mansion, with the view of the fountain partially obscured by the imperfections of the glass itself. It was a dark room before Jaina flitted her orb of light into the fireplace, igniting it in an instant, and then she stood aside to watch the ranger place that sickly, unrecognisable form on the bed. He gave her a somber look.

”Are you certain of this?” he asked her, his voice conflicted yet detached, official.

He’d been high-ranking in the forces Kael’thas had taken with him to the Outland and beyond, but he looked exhausted now, drained by these years and no doubt the battles from his past up until that which had led to this moment. Jaina couldn’t imagine it; Kael’thas had been immensely powerful before, well beyond her own abilities, and to see him fallen now made her imagine a fight likely beyond what he’d been ready for in the shape that he was in. She couldn’t see him going down without exhausting every skill and spell in his power first. Her eyes wandered back to his form and she suppressed a shudder at it, nodding instead.

”I have made my decision. Thank you for your concern,” she said politely.

”If you are found out...” the ranger started, his voice fading.

Jaina nodded.

”I know. If it is to be so then I will accept the consequences of my choice, of course.”

She looked at the ranger, whose eyes still lingered upon the body on the bed. She saw a depth in them, behind the dim green glow they emitted; they’d once been brown, a rare colour for a blood elf, she realised as her sight grew used to the light and could finally perceive a glimpse of the iris behind it. She didn’t know his name - he’d always approached her anonymously, from the very first time he’d send her a correspondence. It was better if they didn’t know each other. This was a conspiracy beyond the scale for names, althought obviously she was left at a disadvantage. Still, the look with which he regarded his fallen prince reassured Jaina. This man, whoever he was or had been, loved Kael’thas as fiercely as he’d sworn to her - he would not betray him, and as such, he would not betray Jaina either.

”I am not a healer,” she reminded him. ”What I can do for him might not be enough to save his life.”

”My companion did what she could for his injuries. The remaining problem is magical in nature,” the ranger stated, snapping back to reality. ”She is exhausted, I should - go with her. Will you be - do you need my further assistance?”

Jaina shook her head.

”Go. The sooner this place looks abandoned once more the safer we will be.”

The elf nodded.

”I cannot thank you enough,” he said then, adjusting the hood of his cloak over his head. ”You were the only one we could think of. The rest who knew of this are dead or worse off, no one else saw this through, the only ones remaining were me and my companion. We didn’t know who else to turn to. We knew how fond he was of you - before - and that was the judgement we relied on. I am sorry for involving you, Lady Proudmoore. I want to believe something can still change.”

Not knowing what to say, Jaina simply nodded, and the elf nodded in return.

”Well,” he said then, sighing with a joyless smile, ”I must go now and escape my own inevitable judgement - it will not take long for them to know my betrayal and I will be hunted, and I must be far from here by then and if I must die I must also die far away. I hope to be in contact with you later. I am used to disappearing. Hopefully the news then will not be as grim as I fear.”

”I promise you I will do my everything,” Jaina said to him without hesitation, but then her eyes turned to linger on the unsettling green glow once more and she finally let the shiver through herself. ”I only fear my best will not be enough this time.”

”Yet for your effort alone, I am grateful. It is the only hope we have remaining. I bid you farewell now. Be safe.”

He vanished, and indeed did so with the talent of one who was used to stalking shadows. Jaina watched his shadow blend in with those of the entrance hall and then the heavy door opened and closed signaling his departure from the mansion. She instantly felt small and alone and almost crushed by the weight of the plan now all resting in full on her shoulders, and she felt herself slump even as she was picking herself up and preparing to do what had to be done. It sickened her. Even going near this - this _body_ filled her with dread and something else, this nauseating feeling of wrongness that lingered about him. She almost wished that upon inspection she’d find him dead - it would be a kindness, she’d already realised this much although she was still, or she _had_ to believe that she was, set on trying to prevent it... even if it was only because she’d given her word for it. But if it should prove nothing but a cruelty, or worse, then she’d stop - of course she would. He’d been her friend, she thought again; she’d loved him in her own way, enough to look past the warning signs and forgive him where perhaps forgiveness hadn’t been something she should have spared so easily. Never, however, had she loved him the way he’d wanted her to love him. She couldn’t feel responsible or guilty for that, although her heart had always ached for the breaking of his - it had simply not been for them, for her, and for some time he’d accepted that. Or had he? He’d never pressed her, never been anything but accepting of, if bitter and hurt by, her lack of attraction to him, but maybe she’d played her part in this, too. Like she’d played one with Arthas.

Gods, why did she attract only the this type of men? Kind to her, warm to her, caring for her, yet consumed and burnt out by their own madness in the end. What was it about her that made everyone who loved her go insane?

She was close enough to touch, but instead she pulled up the stool she’d set near the bed beforehand and sat down, taking one more breath of preparation before fully focusing upon him now that she had the peace to do so. She lifted her hand once again and the candles on the bedside flickered to light, lifting ever so slightly above the table they’d been set on, and cast their glow upon the features of this being that had once been a prince and a powerful mage, and now... what was he? Jaina hardened her mind and examined him, those pallid and somehow stretched and thinned features that she could barely connect with the beauty of the high elf she’d known in her youth. It was awful, she thought. The fel had poisoned his body, she could see and _feel_ the signs of it without so much as touching him - changes like these didn’t happen overnight. She knew little of it, little of what the addiction she’d only heard so much about did to the blood elves, as those who suffered worst from the affliction were all but cast out of society, and most talk of them was hushed. They were a source of shame no one wished to discuss, and even less to an outsider, even one as well-connected as Jaina was, yet she knew enough to see the transformation that was well in progress in Kael’thas. His hair, once like gold and light spun into life, was now thin and lifeless and almost a transparent shade of yellow like the fluids that escaped a rotting body. No - it did not make her think of sunlight anymore, and his skin that had once been perfect and unmarred by time and indeed untouched by the struggles of life was no longer glowing with health and the vigorous energy of life flowing within him, but was now also much like that of a dead body’s, colourless and ashen and tinted by that same green hue that had overcome his previously so bright image. 

The stinging of tears rushing her eyes came as a surprise to Jaina, so well had she suppressed her horror and detached from her emotions to look upon this body not as that of one she’d once called her friend and respected and felt affection for but as some kind of a magical curiosity, and yet she couldn’t fully separate herself from it. She brushed the tears out with some irritation, decisive not to let them render her less efficient, but the pain surged within her and she ached with every note she took in her mind of his condition. One thing was for certain - she could do nothing as long as the fel magic was still tainting him, still pulsing into his natural magical energies and fouling them, fouling _him_ , and defiling the very flesh that became him. But how could she possibly extract it without killing him in the process? This was dark magic, as dark as she’d ever seen it, and she doubted hands from this world could have had crafted it if they’d tried to. Distorting the natural purpose and essence of a body in this manner required evil beyond what Jaina wanted to believe Kael’thas or any elf could have turned their powers to. Of course he’d been surrounded by demons, powerful servants of the Burning Legion, who had more than the will and power to defile living things like this - the thought made her feel chill even in the heat of the fireplace glowing beside her - and so, just as she’d feared, they’d worked that power on him after his defeat in the Outland. It made sense that it had been done after what had happened in Tempest Keep to keep him alive... he’d still had a role to serve, Jaina thought with bitter horror, but the shape in which he’d serve it hadn’t mattered. The coldness, the cruelty of the magic cast on him made her sick in her stomach. No, maybe he could not die, but what this _implant_ had done to this once proud and powerful man was nothing short of inhuman.

Trembling slightly but disregarding it, Jaina pressed her hands carefully and very lightly upon the twisted form of her former friend. He was cold to touch, not as cold as a corpse would be but like one succumbing to a deadly illness. It reminded her of the undead, but she suppressed that thought along with the rest of those flooding into her, and focused. The first thing she found in his energies was this rush of unnatural, horrifyingly twisted magic - it all but flooded her in response to her connecting her magic with his, and it bit like a spark of fire but all without the natural familiarity of fire from this world, and it made her want to lift her hands immediately and do something drastic to purify even the touch of it on herself but she fought her instincts and kept looking, searching, for something that she could recognise. To her surprise, the first thing she found that was of this world was a heartbeat. It was erratic and much too weak to sustain health, but it was there and she could _feel_ it, and she hurt for him in that very instant for the knowledge that he was alive to feel that foul energy within him, to feel it consuming him, and to feel it having made its home in his once healthy and pure body. Alone, however, a heartbeat meant little in the world of magic. She needed more - she needed to feel his essence, needed proof that there was still _him_ to try and save in there to begin with. If she’d extract the energy without a life force to leave behind, or if that life force was so imbued with the demonic magic that it could no longer be separated from it, she’d at worst leave behind an empty shell and at best a dead body and nothing more. If that was the case, she’d have to change her goal from trying to save him, as hopeless as that goal even now seemed, to simply trying to make his passing easier on him - but even as she thought this and struggled to accept it, she finally felt the electrifying spark of magic she could recognise within him. This was mana, pure and replenished by a living source, and it was untainted and separate from the fel magic although she could even now feel it being fed by that energy. While she’d never had much skill in the art of healing she could easily recognise magic within another’s living body, and this was it, this was an essence she knew, and it gave her hope. For a moment she let her own magic entwine with that which she’d found coursing within the elf’s mangled and twisted shape, but it was weak and drained and she feared her interference was further straining him, so at last she lifted her hands off his shape again and rested them on her lap, feeling as if she’d thrust them through tainted water and the filth from what she’d waded through still stuck to her. If _she_ felt dirty from the fel that had barely touched her... she had no idea what she could possibly do to purify it from him. It was magic, surely enough, but she’d never dealt with it like this, never tried to extract it from a source it didn’t belong in. 

She grimaced at the thought of touching the gem embedded in the prince’s body, but she feared she’d have to do so sooner rather than later. It seemed the most logical thing to start with to remove that awful thing, and yet she’d have to make sure that the shock of it would not kill him in the process. Even with his body healed by the grace of the priest’s Light, it was obvious that he’d already been weak from the first time he’d had a close brush with dead - in a way, perhaps he had died indeed, if this crystal was the only thing keeping him alive now. She’d have to replace it with something, but what? What could possibly give him enough energy to not only survive the removal, but to stay alive afterwards in spite of his weakness and his addiction, which Jaina knew even less about than she understood the effects that the fel magic he’d used to cope with it would have had on his body. Most of what she knew she’d learned from the nameless ranger, who’d been generous with information but still a limited source of knowledge for a mage, and much less than ideal for a mage who was attempting to cure a cureless magical condition with no second chances or room for trial and error. 

Could she simply feed him her own magic? Could she connect them, survive it, and control such a bond? Would she be strong enough to sustain herself? Her powers would be greatly diminished under ideal conditions and truly she could not afford it now, nor did she have time to rest, but if she’d have to - if it was the only way... and yet she doubted she could at once keep herself standing _and_ fend off against the elf’s likely attempt to drain her of more than she could grant him. She knew that the blood elves now knew how to take magic from other sources, including other living beings; the prince she’d once known would have never taken anything from her without her permission, would have never hurt her if he could help it, but this ruin of him Jaina did not know nor did she trust. And yet... it still seemed the only thing she could do. It would be temporary: she would only stabilise him, and once he’d be strong enough, hopefully awake, even - then she’d wean him off that power and let his body and his own magic do what it should have been doing naturally. In essence, she thought grimly, she’d replace the Sunwell with her own very limited pools of energy for him to feed off of. It was better than this cursed magic he’d filled himself with now, but - damn it - it wasn’t the conclusion that Jaina had wanted to arrive at.

So be it, she thought in defeat; she didn’t have time to find a better alternative. Still the very thought of doing that now, of forming that bond with all the evil and tainted that dwelled in the magical powers within this barely living body - she hesitated again. No, it wasn’t _just_ a body. This was still Kael’thas. And yet she knew she wouldn’t have done this even under better circumstances. That closeness with the elven prince scared her. She’d always kept a distance from him, or rather, she’d never found a bridge firm enough to cross it with. They’d always been too different, and now it felt as if she was about to share her very soul with him. Her magic was more of her than anything she’d ever shared with anyone, or at least... at least anyone who wasn’t Arthas. Jaina stilled; she had given her everything to Arthas and she’d done so without hesitation. This felt almost as intimate as what she’d shared with him and she didn’t like that; she didn’t want this bond, or that closeness, with Kael’thas. Would she have to want it to create a link strong enough to keep him alive through the extraction? She doubted it. All she’d have to do was to force herself into it. She could do that - to save his life.

The thought that presented itself within her, without her permission, made her hate herself for it. Was it a life worth saving? Jaina’s eyes stopped upon the weakened, fragile and gaunt face of the mage unconscious in front of her, barely clinging to life as she debated its worth. She sickened herself, but it was a question she had to ask. What would follow then? Say she’d be succesful. Would he simply get back on his feet and sow more destruction in his wake, crawling back to his demonic allies and his eredar overlord? All that blood and destruction would be equally on Jaina’s hands then, not solely his; she could no longer ask herself whether she’d been a contributing cause to it, and instead she’d know that without her actions, none of it would have come to pass. She had to choose now whether to do what was wrong for the good reasons and let him die, believing she might have prevented a tragedy much worse from occurring by doing so... or if she’d do the right thing and save him, knowing that she might have doomed the whole world in the process, or at least knowingly brought all that she loved and held dear in great peril.

”You were always kind to me,” she spoke quietly in the silence of the room, ”even when you tried your hardest not to be, to hurt me so that I would hurt you, you cared for me and there was never a moment I could escape knowing that. Why has it all ended here? I am so, so sorry, Kael.”

Using that name, that casual, friendly way of addressing him still felt foreign to Jaina, yet it was the smallest kindness she could show him now. Who would she be if she’d let him die? Even knowing what he’d done and what he might do next, she had never been one to condemn another for deeds he hadn’t yet committed. Perhaps she didn’t trust him, and perhaps she knew that whatever corruption ran in his veins now was likely much deeper than she could ever hope to cure with her powers, but when it came to simply killing him instead of trying to save him, trying to give him a second chance - she would never be able to live with it. Whatever the consequences, she would face them when they came and deal with them to her best ability then. Now there was only one thing she could do, as much for her own sake as for his - perhaps more for her own - and she couldn’t discount the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, she was doing it for Arthas, too, although hearing that would have made him laugh now. Saving Kael’thas would have only ever been an _insult_ to the... was he even a man anymore? Jaina wasn’t sure if she could call him that. Yet she couldn’t save him, and she’d never stood a chance against the corruption in him, whether by dark powers or by the twists of his own mind. Arthas had been a lost cause to her that she’d never been given a fighting chance to protect from the evil that had taken hold of his heart. At least with this man... she had a chance to do what she couldn’t in the past, a chance to at least _try_ one more time. Maybe there was still something to save - and maybe this time she would be strong enough to save it.

She stretched her fingers, palms and wrists and cleared her throat, then sat up straighter in her seat. Yes, she could do this now: she had to, or else she’d lose something of herself. With a decisive touch, she first reached to assess what she would be battling with and brought her fingers to the eerily glowing gem piercing through Kael’s chest. It met her with what felt like an inaudible scream, a whirlpool of tainted energy so strong that it closed up her throat and forced her to breathe through her parted lips before she’d re-established her defenses to hold that storm of power at bay. So this was what powered him; embodied in the shape of a crystal was a core of demonic energy so strong that it could have released enough destructive magic to collapse a building in the blink of an eye. She’d have to break it, she assumed - physically render it separate so that its power would diminish. What a cursed, horrible thing it was, and every second its energy coursed into the body of the man lying still on the bed before her. As if to spite the gem she kept her fingers upon it, battling its invasive power and its corruption just to prove herself that she could, and only once she was certain of the superiority of her powers over it did she release herself from the contact, moving her hands back over Kael’s skin. In comparison to touching the gem, his body no longer felt as shocking to her. She could now separate his energy from the fel crystal’s much easier, having known the latter first hand, and it reassured her of the blood elf’s presence within his own skin. She could almost rest upon that natural, untainted energy, and for the first time tonight she felt familiarity at its presence - a faint smile lingered on her momentarily as her memories took her back to Dalaran, back to its libraries with dust lingering in rays of sunlight piercing through the stained glass windows, and to its gardens and pools and fountains where Kael’thas had often sought her out to speak with her, and where she’d almost invariably received him with anxiety and awkwardness. It had seemed that he’d still enjoyed her company despite her nerves and her never-shifting distance, and they’d had their moments of warmth, too: he’d never let her forget that time she’d almost set him on fire, and soon as she’d outlived the shame of that moment, it had always eased a smile out of her as well. 

It dawned to her, first slowly and then in a burst, that she could rein these thoughts, these memories, to wield as if weapons for the battle to come. She focused on those feelings that reminiscing had brought back to her, on the good moments they’d lived through and then the worse ones, reconnecting with the man he’d known Kael’thas as before, and from there she aimed that recognition towards him instead, towards the body she was connecting with. His mana swirled within him like the surface of a pool of water disturbed by an object quickly entering it, almost splashing at impact, and she could feel a flicker of his power sparking against her when she pushed her magic against his. It was as if repeatedly calling his name: she conjured up memories, little gestures of his that she’d grown used to over her years in Dalaran, the small things she’d learned to like about him, and then the bigger things that had alarmed or annyoed her, as all of these were parts of him and she needed to connect with him in whole. She didn’t need just some version of him that she’d wished to remember but all of him, the good and the bad, so that his essence would ease into her and she could link hers to it. She’d never done it to this degree before; it was as if bringing child’s play to war, wielding wooden swords against warhammers. When she’d been young, she had indeed played that way with the other young mages - they’d touched hands and screamed with excitement at the bursts of energy they’d send at each other. Sometimes other things would happen; Jaina recalled flashes of memories and feelings and experiences she’d never been through herself stemming from her friends, vivid and fascinating even under the bright light of day. Now here she was, tempting that spark... not to pull back from it but to embrace it. She was afraid of what she’d feel then, but when she recognised that fear she forcefully subdued it and pushed it out of her mind. She couldn’t hesitate: it was part of the game. 

The whole thing was ridiculous. Even in Dalaran, Kael’thas had always been her superior - not only had he been infinitely more powerful and experienced than she was then, but his age and mannerisms had all separated them like an ocean and it would have never in a thousand years occurred to her to play this stupid game with someone like him. Indeed, she would have expected just a spark of his powers to all but kill her where she stood, and even before reaching that far, just asking him to play would have been unthinkable. They didn’t do such things - well, _he_ didn’t. He wasn’t a child like Jaina had been. She wanted to ask him now. She wanted to be a child of fourteen again seeing him for the first time and reassure herself that she could approach him and that even if she wouldn’t he eventually would, that he’d notice her in time, and that she should use her childish naivety and bubbling charm to simply do what she now felt too shy to do: to ask him for a game of spark.

Would he have agreed? Of course he would. That curious child would have piqued his interest, his own curiosity. He’d never been unpleasant, and amongst children, he had always been... stiff, formal as always, but in a manner that was anxious more than it was coldness, and Jaina had never met a child who wouldn’t have been the least bit interested in him. There were mages in Dalaran that had been all but off-putting to her and everyone she’d known as a young student, yet Kael’thas had never been one of them. He’d simply been distant, always holding something back - and with his high rank, he’d come across as someone to respect, but no one as far as Jaina could remember had ever found him... threatening, or unsettling, or particularly unpleasant.

”Your Highness,” she nearly whispered, eyes closed and magic like a third hand reaching further within, ”would you please play a game of spark with me?”

By the Light, she even sounded like a child when she spoke those words. Embarrasment burned at her now like a flame and she felt exactly like that girl of fourteen she’d brought back to life in her mind, and with every passing moment of silence she felt more and more ridiculous, but then - maybe it was nothing. A simple ripple in the powers already swirling from her invasion. She readjusted in her seat and found herself biting into her lip hard and sharp, and when she relaxed her jaws she could taste the dull, savoury taste of copper in her mouth. No, it was definitely something: the magic she was reaching for rippled again, its sparks like little needles over her skin. She breathed in a gasp that had threatened to grow audible, then reassessed herself and focused harder. She remembered the rhythm well enough; push, then pull. Now she simply would not _pull_ \- so she pushed. The energy rippled, but no touch came this time, only a swell like storm lifting the corrupt fel magic she was trying to keep at bay.

”Just one more time, Your Highness. I wasn’t prepared.”

This time, the sparks were _loud_ ; strong and unyielding and nothing like the little push a child would have given her in return for her awkward prodding. Even now at his weakest and barely alive, Kael’thas was nothing like any mage Jaina had matched her powers with. She’d never seen him cast in seriousness - the magic she’d seen from him was all but examples, little performances put up for her as he’d merely helped her with her studies and her spellwork. Small glimpses of the power within, cast for her amusement here and there. It made her fear him even now, that small taste of what he held inside; she’d heard it had taken an army to bring him down in Tempest Keep. The news had hurt her and terrified her at once then. Now, suddenly, she realised she was alone in this room with that power... tainted and changed by the demonic energies that fed it, and had no doubt fed it for years. The pins and needles in her grew stronger even after the push was over and her heart was beating so fast it hurt, and she wanted nothing more than to withdraw and stand back and _escape_ , and she almost did, almost _pulled_ instead of pushing, and - then she sunk in. One more push, and she felt something she’d never felt before: a moment of perfect stillness, a breaking, and then a flood like the whole of an ocean rushing angrily back at the shore. Her eyes flew open and she realised she couldn’t move a limb, like she was petrified or frozen or simply no longer in control of herself, and panic rose within her in full force. It took her all her willpower to not concentrate on breaking away, both mentally and physically; she hated this feeling, hated it more than anything, this _binding_ , this - this experience like being joined at the core with something that was draining her, sucking her dry, killing her. 

_You have to control it_ , she reminded herself, a small but firm voice of reason stemming from deep within her.

And yet she felt as if she was tugging at a leech. She wanted to tear it off: she wanted to get rid of it more than she wanted anything in the world. She felt sick and already like she was all but dying as her energies flooded into what felt like an endless void, a void that hungered for nothing more than to consume everything in her until she was nothing but a dried out husk ready to scatter in the smallest of breezes. 

_Control it_ , she heard her own voice scream louder inside her, and it startled her into action - she steadied herself again, finding it hard but not impossible now to move her body, and she clamped down on the flow of energy.

_No,_ she told it; _You can’t have all of me._

It felt like trying to grasp a stream. Wherever she pressed, her magic simply flowed past and away from her. Teeth clasped together firmly enough she hoped they wouldn’t break before she’d be done with this, Jaina grasped and grasped and grasped at the flow until she finally felt... it felt as if her own heart stopped for a moment, that sudden was the jolt and the stillness that followed her action. She’d stopped it, entirely; the flow was no more. The connection remained, however, she hadn’t shattered that yet - she gave herself a moment to breathe, preparing to let the flow continue on her own terms, but just as she was about to loosen on her hold over the bond between them she felt something that made her let out a faint yelp out loud. So _that_ was what the Illidari had taught him, she thought as she struggled against the shock of what had felt like a sharp tug at her - it had been a completely unrelenting, merciless pull of energy that had all but stolen strength from her, bypassing her control over the flow to simply drain what was wanted, desired, from her. And she’d felt so powerless against it; she’d never felt anything like it. It was the mana tap, she reasoned - she’d have to find a way to protect herself against it somehow, or break the link immediately. For a moment she feared there’d be a way that Kael’thas could force the link back open with that power, but it seemed as if it couldn’t be done very fast in succession: she waited in stillness, fearing, until she felt that tug again. It was so strong that it knocked the breath out of her, so unyielding and so unpredictable and fast - but this time, she caught it. She’d been waiting for it. Her magic surged to deflect the grip, partially rendering it ineffective, protecting itself, and instead she let the link between them open ever so slightly, now without the feeling of being trapped in a coursing river but instead as if she had a little spring stream inside her, a trickle of mana running from her to him. She felt him reach for it with all the strength of his need again but denied it, using the same protective surge from before; he’d learn soon enough that it was of no use to exert his powers against her. He was weak. She was not. She could hold him at bay - for now.

It took Jaina a long time to stabilise herself and adjust the flow of magic between them, and even once she had, she wasn’t entirely sure if she was still giving out more than she could afford. She simply didn’t have the time to test it, to find out if she could spare herself a little more - she’d have to tear this crystallized evil out of the blood elf’s body now, or she’d lose too much strength to do so in the first place. When this all would be over, however it’d end, she feared she’d be too exhausted to move; at least it’d spare her the pain of failure, she thought bitterly, should all of it be of no use in the end. Her hands shaking she lifted them from Kael’s body again, took a deep breath and forced herself to not only touch but _grip_ the foul gem piercing him. This time, the forces battling against her made her scream - she let it out like a battle cry, praying even then that her strength would be enough to keep Kael’thas alive as she mustered her powers to shatter the tainted thing she was holding in her grasp. It cracked, sizzling like water hitting red hot metal, and she let out another scream, stood up from her chair and _pushed_ her magic against the gem, forcing its essences apart, forcing it to become non-solid again, and it was glowing brighter and brighter in her grasp until - with a bright flash and what felt like an explosion in the room - it came apart and shattered into little pieces. She was panting, her eyes blinded for a moment, and the only thing she could focus on was the link between herself and Kael’thas, and she felt scared when she focused on it as she could sense the core energy she was connected to fading away, flickering like a flame in the wind as it now struggled to exist at all with the sudden loss of all that had fed strength to it before and which Jaina had now destroyed. The air smelled acrid, like something toxic burning, like she’d cracked open volcanic rocks and heated them all over again. It was a strange smell that made her feel uneasy yet victorious; she’d broken it. She’d done it, and even now... Kael’thas was still alive. Even if it was _only_ because of her magic he was alive, and when her hand blindly slipped back onto his chest, the cavity the gem had been in had already closed, leaving behind what felt like once-broken bones and a fresh, thick surface of scar tissue.

When Jaina’s eyes finally regained vision, as blurred and dark as it remained, she could see her fingers bent over that area first. She wished she had a healer’s powers now perhaps even more than before, but she feared she’d done everything she could, and all too soon the remaining damage would become permanent. That would, truly, be miserable for him and yet even knowing this she couldn’t bring herself to grieve it too much - she felt victorious. Strong. She’d beaten whatever demonic magic had brought him back together from death and she had _won_ over it, and he was still alive, alive and somehow already different, although Jaina truly had no idea how she could proceed from here. She’d done what she could and it was worth celebrating: for now, she had succeeded at doing the impossible, and that was what mattered. She was much too exhausted to give it a second thought. Everything else could wait.

For a long time she sat there, immobilized by exhaustion, simply breathing until finally she couldn’t stand the smell of the burnt-out and shattered gem any longer. To let it out, and to let fresh air in, she stood up on two very stiff and unsteady feet and made her way across the room to the window, parting it ever so slightly to let the night cleanse what the fel magic had spoiled. She stuck her face against the gap between the window and its frame and rested herself on it, breathing and breathing and breathing in the air that had by now cooled down significantly, making her remember it was quite late for summer now and fall would inevitably follow soon. Her body was sweaty and shaking, but she was relieved to just be there now, no longer fighting, no longer... her eyes opened, stinging with exhaustion. She couldn’t feel the link here. A shudder ran through her as she shifted and turned, stumbling as if drunk as she made her way back to the bed. She pressed her hand on him again to feel his heartbeat but she couldn’t find it, and fear swelled in her; she tried to reconnect with her own magic first but she was so drained she could barely feel it, and when she did it was unwilling to go back to him even as she loosened up the pressure she’d applied to make sure Kael’thas couldn’t drain her dry. Now he wasn’t even - was any of her connected to him anymore? She couldn’t even find him there. Instead she felt her tears again, same as when she’d first regarded him. _No,_ she thought with a flush of anger, _you can’t take this from me now. I’ve worked too hard._ Whom she was addressing with her thoughts she didn’t quite know - the universe, or any gods watching over her, the Light that she’d never wielded? Ultimately, it didn’t matter. She let the link flow free again. To hell with it; if she’d only feel him present again, he could have the damn whole of her magic.

And then, there it was again - the feeling of being part of a stream coursing forwards returned to her. She sighed, her shaky knees giving out under her and she fell beside the bed, face burying into the mattress. The link was so weak, even at full strength, as if there was barely anything in him to connect to her again - no wonder her previously so firm grip of what she was lending him had all but strangled that essence away from her, closed it off and denied it when it no longer demanded but could barely whisper out a plea for sustaining. She pressed against it, physically nuzzling the bed as she did so because she could no longer fully separate herself from her exertions, trying to encourage it, trying to force it to take what she was offering, but it was too frail to receive more than it was already taking. A child would have had more magical potential than this mage in her guest room did now, and it scared her; she’d felt something like this at the deathbed of others before, but she didn’t want to think of it, didn’t want to think of the lessening that happened moments before passing in even those most powerful in life. Shifting, she wiped off the tears in her eyes and gazed around the room. It wouldn’t do, she thought as she heard herself let out a gasping sob of exhaustion and fear - if he was truly dying, if she’d killed him, then she would not let it happen in this room so far away from his home. Jaina was shaking when she pulled herself back on her feet and a small growl escaped her as she started conjuring. Illusion spells... she’d never been to Silvermoon, or Quel’Thalas. He’d invited her so many times, and yet she’d always turned him down. She’d had no reason to go. But she’d seen glimpses of it elsewhere, through portals and depictions such as paintings and drawings, and she’d heard the birds the elven mages had trapped in their rooms in Dalaran and read poetry and recountings of the visits by others who’d been there. She believed that at least she could come up with a convincing mirage of the forests, clad in their golden leaves and drowned in a choir of enchanting birdsongs... If he had to die, then he could die as close to home as she could bring him.

_Damn it all_ , she thought as she wiped the walls from sight and replaced them with golden leaves shifting in soft breezes, covering and uncovering the pale ivory bark of the trunks the branches grew from. Just the same she did away with the floors, and instead of it she brought into life gentle waves of green grass and brightly-blooming wild flowers, and finally the ceiling, which she replaced with the canopies of the trees she’d summoned and behind them... the deepest blue sky she could think of, littered with stars cast like fireflies upon a velvet sheet. And with that she collapsed, her breath barely still running from exhaustion; her hand reached out onto the bed and she sought out his, gripped it and held it firmly before resting her head back against the mattress. She would have never thought herself capable of it, but she fell asleep that way - completely drained, sitting on the floor of her own creation and lurched against the bed still standing in the midst of her fanciful image of a land she’d never been to. Through it all, she could sense his magic still there - beating, as if along with his heart.


	3. Songbirds

* * *

  
He’d had a dream of Jaina. Those days in Dalaran... they seemed so far away. She’d been there again, by his side, and her hands had held an apple, then grasped fire, and now he could hear nothing but the songbirds in Quel’Danas although the ocean was quieter than usual and he could only barely hear it. He ached, and if anything his aches had only grown worse since what he felt had been years ago when he’d faced those few who’d slain their way through his subjects and allies in - but was he not at Magister’s Terrace still? Was this not Quel’Danas, with its golden beaches covered with the foam of waves, beside the Sunwell’s ruins where he should have been but was _not_ bathed by its endless grace? He felt worse than death; not a part of his body moved and there was no magic in him that he could have used to dig his way out of this hell his body seemed to have imprisoned him in. It was like a sickness, like those first few nights he’d learned just _how much_ he needed the Sunwell - needed something to _replace_ it. He’d thought he’d die then, and he’d gone through his days pretending but at night he’d craved for death and he’d sworn he’d put an end to it, put an end to it for them all. Had he not? Was this Kil’jaeden’s doing? Or someone else’s? The full truth was that Kael’thas couldn’t even decide what year it was - perhaps he was still in Dalaran, sick with a fever, and everything else had been a horrible dream. Perhaps he’d fallen at the Sunwell and now his spirit was trapped in Quel’Danas forever, and this was or had been his purgatory. Or maybe he was simply... dead, although he still thought that his suffering was too great for it to count as the end of anything. Through it all as his constant companion there was that burning hunger that he couldn’t sate, this scorching of agony within his skin, yet... something, at least, was keeping him sane. He felt strangely more in control than he had since the battle in Tempest Keep. Something had changed. And the dream of Jaina... he could still sense her, although he couldn’t move or open his eyes, and maybe it was best that way as at least for now he could still keep her with him in his mind when reality couldn’t quite yet shatter her vision from his dream. When had he last thought of her with this much clarity? Sometimes he did everything he could not to remember her at all, as still, even after these years, it hurt to do so. How he’d wished that he could have taken back the bitter words he’d cast at her on their last meeting, but... had it been shame that kept him from doing it, or had he merely, as he’d often reasoned to himself, thought it better if he simply did not contact her again?

He missed her now. Dearly, strongly, blindingly. If this was death or the first or the last stages of it, he missed her even more then. If only to see her... only to tell her his words had been foul and should have never been uttered, and that he’d meant none of them and had never thought himself capable of inflicting that pain upon her - but it was too late now. Much too late. Even if Kil’jaeden... especially if... 

He felt himself move, his fingers barely bending, but at least he was still there and connected to the body he inhabited. The burning within him worsened and then eased again, as if the faintest glimpse of the Sunwell still remained to keep the torture of separation at bay. He’d felt relief from it before but this was not it - and yes - strangely, almost shockingly - he could not feel the fel magic pulsing in him either. He thought clearer now. Everything was much sharper in focus. How long had it been since he’d last felt this much like himself? Like he’d been before... before the Scourge, before his father’s death? It was almost like he _was_ back in Dalaran... if it wasn’t for the birds, he could have believed himself there now, with Jaina’s presence still lingering somewhere nearby. His fingers bent more, tightening around sheets.

No, not sheets - something else. Something solid and warm. He wanted to look but couldn’t move; he could feel the blackness spreading into his mind again, taking over although he tried to resist it. The voices were gone, he realised all of a sudden; he couldn’t hear the call anymore. He couldn’t hear the orders, the incessant whispering, the commands. A breath escaped him, heavy and rough like grinding sand against paper, and his eyes finally opened to see the sunrise in the open sky in full bloom of purple and violet and shreds of clouds.

Was he outside? Why - he could tell the sky was familiar, but it didn’t seem the same he’d always watched as a child. The stars were different. He held the hand in his grip tighter unknowing if it was really there or not, his consciousness slipping from him.

This had to be a dream, too.

*

Jaina could barely endure it. This, she thought, had to be the cruelest form of torture: sitting at a table listening to report after report of what had transpired at the ruins of Sunwell last night, only she had news much more urgent than any of them there now and those _news_ were draining her of her magic no matter how many sips of her glass of refreshing spring water she would take. She felt parched and starved simultaneously, but a ravenous hunger like that would not go unnoticed in company, so she paced herself, picking up the freshly conjured bread and slowly splitting it in her hands, then buttering it with strokes that felt like punishment on herself before she could finally press it to her mouth.

The Shattered Sun Offensive had been succesful. At last minute, they’d come to the Sunwell and banished the evil that was about to rise through it. But, and there was always a but in everyone’s sentence, ending it abruptly to linger in a silence afterwards - there was a body missing. No one had seen Kael’thas since his death had been confirmed by the party of heroes sent into the Terrace to remove the threat. They’d all heard about it now, about his miserable state and his _transformation_ , and yet none had an explanation for what had happened since. It had to be the Sunblades! A missing agent of his left to retrieve the body while the raid was still in progress and no one had been spared to stay behind to safeguard it. No, it was the missing blood elves from the raiding party itself, although the losses had not yet been counted and likely they would both eventually be found amongst the dead, not at all _missing_ like first expected. That theory was dismissed. The ranger had helped in killing the Sunstrider prince, everyone could prove as much! He’d stuck arrows in him, for heaven’s sake. What kind of madness would drive a man first to kill another and then hide his body away from his own allies? And the priest - well, she was a healer, not a soldier. No one had a bad word to say about her, she’d kept them alive and soothed their burns and their cuts; no, it simply _had_ to be a loose Sunblade agent. A mage, perhaps, who’d then portaled away. But of course, no portals could be created under the Offensive’s spellwork. It would require some serious - oh, but maybe it _could_ be done after all. A Sunblade mage might have received training from Kael’thas himself, surely there were mages powerful enough there to take apart one thread in a tapestry and escape through it unnoticed?

But where was the ranger, then? And the priest?

Dead! They both _had_ to be dead.

Jaina split another piece of bread. Her fingertips were cold as ice and all her will went into stopping herself from shaking as if struck by a fever. She could barely hear the reports, and she was growing quite tired of giving Pained her reassuring gazes whenever the night elf stared at her too intensely. All she wanted to do was drink more, more, more water and juice and then collapse in the safety, security of her magically-guarded fort of a mansion - no - she wanted to check on _him_ first. Somehow, even thinking of him made her feel at unease, and she found herself stealing glances around herself to make sure she hadn’t accidentally whispered those words out loud, or perhaps someone had merely heard her private thoughts or sensed something wrong about her. She was not used to conspiring against people she respected and loved as her allies. This would die down soon, she reminded herself; it was only news for now, and would soon become nothing but an unsettling afternote in the shattered - and now as if by a miracle, restored - Sunwell’s story. The prince who’d first brought it down for the good of his own people, and then used its ruins in a mad effort to doom them all... vanished without a trace.

Jaina swallowed. Yes, she could do this, and she did: after the meeting, she pushed her limits to transport herself first to the outskirts of the growing town of Theramore, no one would question that, and then - when she stood upon a familiar, murky opening in the marshes near the city's outer bounds - she cast another spell, vanishing from the map. This double life she’d lived for no more than ten hours now was already about to drive her mad. She was simply not built for deceit, it seemed.

The mansion was dead silent, if not for the birdsongs faintly audible from a corridor away when she entered the entrance hall. She breathed in deeply and shook off the tension from the meeting by brushing back her long braid and wiping her face with her hands, an exhausted sigh passing her lips as she took the first step towards where it sounded as if a forest had grown on this rocky island in the middle of the sea. She opened the door and stepped inside into the outdoor illusion, where a bed remained in the midst of a sunny forest opening, and a lit fireplace crackled against the thick trunk of a white-and-gold tree. Sunlight did no favours for her guest, she’d learned as much waking up from her deep, exhausted sleep stiff and aching this very morning: his sickly, pale and gaunt skin looked completely unnatural when the morning’s light did not fill it with colour and blush anymore as it once had done. Indeed, he still looked like a corpse - but even from the doorway Jaina could see his chest and abdomen rising and falling, still erratic and irregular as if he had to gasp for air each time but there was no question about it, he was still alive, and by the feel of the link between them... he was growing stronger again. Was it simply her magic fueling him? His thirst for mana had increased since last night, and Jaina felt the drain as an ache that never fully subsided within her now, but it was faint like the pain of a bruise, something she disliked but could easily endure. Now she sat on the bed beside him; even in his tattered robes he took up very little of it. He’d always been slim - she remembered his graceful features veiled by the robes of the Kirin Tor from Dalaran well enough as that was how she’d seen him for years - but now his bones were sticking out of his drained body and he seemed to barely have any flesh between his skin and bones. Worse yet, his skin was prickled with the markings of old cuts, wounds that were either not completely healed or only now beginning to, merely faded by the healer’s touch from last night. He looked as if he’d survived a plague of some kind, but just barely, and she was afraid to touch him fearing it would cause him pain. Would he even know it? He seemed completely unconscious, and Jaina wondered how long it would take for him to grow strong enough to wake from it. How would he be then? It concerned her greatly. It had been so long since she’d even talked to him, and they had parted on the worst of terms - and he had not improved since, she feared. All his dealings with the Betrayer first, and then... worse - she felt cold again despite the warmth of the room at the thought of the Burning Legion. It had come all too close last night, and here she was, with Kael’thas, _hiding_ him from her allies against all sense and logic. He was the enemy now. He’d become the enemy all on his own accord. What would wake up from this bed? Would there be anything left of the elf she’d once known? Even then, she’d often been uncomfortable in his company, his prejudices and pride towards other peoples keeping them separate even though they'd disagreed on many smaller things as well. They’d simply never been close, although he’d desperately wanted them to be so. What would he be like _now_ after everything he’d lost and all the choices he’d made that had brought him here, in her hidden mansion, surrounded by the ocean and sharp rocks from all sides? She tried to conjure up a vision of meeting him again under better conditions and even then she came up with few words to speak to him. 

He looked so... fragile. So completely unlike himself, and so sick and faded and colourless, like a shadow of the great man she’d seen in him before. It was painful to look at him, and yet, she couldn’t help herself as she lifted her hand and pressed the back of her palm over his cheek, feeling his skin cold and wax-like underneath her touch. She wondered if he could feel her there, or if he knew at all that there was someone there with him. Did he know she was touching him? If he did, was it unpleasant to him? She knew he would have wished for this before, but there seemed to be so little left of Kael’thas in this new form that even then... She withdrew her hand, landing it back on the mattress uncertainly, sorrow and hurt aching in her chest alongside the by now familiar throbbing of her powers draining, draining away from her. He’d ceased trying to steal more from her, perhaps only because he was too weak now or perhaps because he’d learned in his subconscious that she was not going to yield to his demands. She’d learned to resist the mana tap by now, and it was easier than she could have hoped. It was a strange, unwelcome realisation that she was the stronger one of them now - it didn’t make her feel more confident. In contrast, she felt unsettled by the truth. It would have been better to still fear his powers: at least it would have reminded her of who he once used to be.

Her legs still feeling weak as if she’d been riding for days, Jaina pulled herself back up from the bed. He was fine, for now; she could tend to her own needs next while she waited for something to change.

*

The birds were still singing; was it daytime yet? Or another morning, another week entirely? The pain in Kael’s body had changed, but not subsided. It was ever-present in the flickers of his consciousness that he tried hard to merge together into a longer period of awakeness, if only inside his mind, but eventually, after what felt like decades but could have been mere minutes, he finally felt an ounce of control return to him. He could move his fingers again, just barely but intentionally, and then - although the pain that followed made him regret it in an instant - he could finally crack open his eyes too. The sunlight was _piercing_ , but now it was clear to him in an instant that it was not the real sun he was looking at. He’d lived and breathed magic for the longest time and he could sense the illusion hanging heavy in what he was seeing. This place, wherever it was, was not _real_ but it was not a dream either - it was a result of someone’s magic, and he was trapped within it whether by his own weakness or some unseen enchantments that were causing this powerlessness, the like of which he’d never felt before. There was more to it, one thing that only served to make the picture less clear to him; he could feel the presence with him still, the one that had stirred him from the void before and which still strangely felt as pure and revitalizing as the Sunwell once had, if only much weaker, like a droplet in the face of a bottomless ocean. He wanted to focus on it but it was elusive, and if he pushed at it, it all but halted at once, so he learned quickly not to disturb it; it was there, and it was something good in this living hell that he’d woken up to, and that was the end of what he could make of it for now.

With his consciousness, as surely as awareness itself, his rage returned to him. He remembered the faces of those who’d betrayed him now, one after the other, down from the most minor of insults to the incomprehensible disappointments served to him by his own people, and somewhere in there, he still burned with anger towards Arthas now, that pest that had taken _everything_ from him and forced him down this road. And Magister’s Terrace! Those two elves, that priestess and the ranger, Aelindas, he could recall his name now - he’d chosen to trust him once, so much so that he’d had him promoted to his Sunblades, if not in person then at least still fully knowing his merits - if he’d ever get another chance, the wrath that he had to serve them knew no bounds. If only he had the strength left... any at all, he would climb out of this chamber that had become his magical tomb and chase them down this instant to make them _feel_ how he’d felt seeing their faces amongst those of his enemies at his weakest moment.

Could he trust no one? No one at all? First the forces of the Alliance, by the Sunwell - the thought of the humans and everything he’d lost to their madness burned like fire within Kael’thas - and now his own people! His _own_ _people_ , even those he’d thought he could still trust, those most loyal - but loyalty meant nothing to them, did it? All he’d ever done and sacrificed - for them, for their sake, for their redemption - was as if nothing to them! One by one they’d left him, left him the closer he’d gotten to finding the solution... the solution to this _need_ that had ruined them, ruined them all. He’d taken care of _them_ in _their_ weakness, but this was how he’d been repaid; with betrayal and a stab in the back. They were no better than any of the pathetic stepping stones he'd left behind. They were no better than that half-elf monster he’d had to ally himself with... for _their_ good. All of it had been for them. And now he was here, in this place... he turned his head ever so slightly, the muscles of his neck straining as if he was fighting against the cold of his own grave. And his skin - it prickled, he could feel it burn all over, a stark reminder of how he'd felt like for weeks now. That gem Delrissa had given him seemed to have broken his body... it had barely mattered then, but the pain of this strange decay was more obvious now amongst every other ache and throb and soreness he was feeling. All of it was too much, too much to bear; he’d seen others go through hell, too, but this had to be the worst of it. Never had he felt anything close to agony like this - it was torture, even with that pleasant... softness of that droplet of the Sunwell that was the only thing now remaining that reminded him of its grace.

There were... trees around him. Wavering in the softest of winds, he could hear it in the leaves, but of course none of that was real. It was strangely resemblant to his bedchamber at home, the place he’d spent his nights when he’d been back in Silvermoon from Dalaran - he’d filled it with enchantments, made it alive at all hours of the day, inspired perhaps by the chamber in which the Council of Six would always meet. Its boundlessness had made him feel at ease, its sheer magical quality like a better version of the world to him where he could be alone and give himself to his books and his magic, and it had pleased him and calmed him from the responsibilities and burdens of royalty that had always pressed him even under... even when his father had still been alive. He’d never been made for that role, but he’d always been afraid to admit it; it had hit him full force only when he’d knelt before Anasterian’s cold body that horrible, horrible day not all too long ago. It was then that he’d realised just how unprepared he’d been to take the crown, and so... he hadn’t. Of course, things had changed since. He was no longer just a prince - he was the Sun King. He was more than his father had ever been and yet... yet so much less. No matter what had transpired since, Kael’thas had always been painfully aware of just how far he would always remain from the mountain of a man his father had been - beloved and respected by his son just as he'd been by his people, Anasterian had shone like a sun through three thousand years of rule, no matter what had come. Kael’thas had never learned how to do the same. He’d always been quiet, always reclusive; he did not have the same quality as his father did that made him so well respected. It had been excruciatingly obvious the night he’d arrived back from Dalaran... the night he’d witnessed the last of his people, bloodied and broken by the Scourge’s slaughter. He’d heard their mutterings and yet he’d had no words for them, no words of comfort where he could spare none even for himself: it was easier to be alone then, but he’d always known he’d have to serve them, even then, above his own needs. Had he known them all mere traitors... he’d gone to the ends of the earth for them. Was this all the gratitude he’d get?

Breathing, as he was learning now, was agony. All movement of his body was torture, blinding pain that never ceased, but the growing frustration like fire forced him through it. He lifted himself from the bed, barely climbing up to his elbows, and - it was gone. The crystal was gone. No wonder he felt this way, this weakened, this - drained - but it made no sense. None of it did! He looked around in the room, and room it was indeed, as there was a window barely open looking out at... fog, nothing but fog with green and yellowing foliage sticking through it, the sound of running water somewhere nearby carrying through the sounds of the enchanted birds, unseen as they had not been depicted in the illusion that covered the room around him. There was a fireplace too, and Kael’thas found himself grateful for it despite everything: he was cold to the bone, his body still no doubt closer to death than life from all that had transpired, of which he could only recall smallest of pieces if even that. And a door, there had to be a door - but he couldn’t find it. Only trees that resembled those of Quel’Thalas the same way a painting would, as a close approximation that still yet lacked the real essence of its inspiration - as if painted by one who’d never even been there, never really seen the beautiful, magical forests of the land of golden summers. 

Where was he? The question became more and more urgent the longer he spent here, and yet he was sure he wouldn’t be able to find an answer to that on his own for some time yet. It was not in Quel’Thalas, as the weather outside was taking a turn for autumn and autumn did not come this way in his kingdom, but he couldn’t place it anywhere else either, anywhere he’d ever been before, although the fog made him think of Tirisfal Glades or the Silverpine, somewhere in the human kingdoms, and yet he could hear the ocean, so he wasn’t far from the shore. His mind was working faster now, and he was increasingly aware of how sharp and unclouded it felt; he felt so much more like a younger version of himself, one that hadn’t had his back broken by the weight of the realm and the loss of the Sunwell. That small trickle of magic that fed him like a lifeline... it was clearing his mind, and even his body felt different to how it had in years, years that he’d spent sustaining his hunger for the arcane with the fel instead. He’d never felt so starkly that there’d been a decline in his wellbeing before now that he was clean from it. And yet his hand, when lifted, shook like an old man’s; he could barely recognise his own body as he looked at it, bone thin with dull, colourless skin spotted by sores and dry cracks. When had he last truly taken a look at himself - when had he last seen himself, instead of being blind in the mental fog his addiction had drowned him with? He couldn’t remember thinking of anything but magic, how to drain more of it, how to dull the pain and the nagging doubt that always followed him with another rush like lightning striking through him... had he truly become one of those broken elves he’d taken under his wing even after they’d ran out of any use, abandoned and scorned by the rest of their kind? He’d felt empathy for them, a deep, fierce and protective love that he’d shown them by feeding them what they needed the most, by giving them access to a supply of energy that would keep their pain at bay. Was he... was he now one of them? If so, then why was his hunger, for the first time in years, so... sated, so undemanding?

The reality was that... for the first time in a long, long time, he wanted to cast magic not out of necessity but just because he could - it didn’t feel like a waste of a resource he was always running out of, but like an ability that he had - that he cherished and was proud of. His hand was still in front of him, that corpse-like, long-clawed thing that ached as if bruised all over, and yet... he felt power in it now, despite the pain and the weakness of it. And he let that power out, releasing it as a flow from within his very core; energy twisted the air between his fingers, spiralled and then solidified, and he let a bird take its wings in his grip. It wasn’t a phoenix, but a small brown sparrow, and it chirped as it flew, circling upwards towards the unseen ceiling. He conjured another, enthralled by how easy it was all of a sudden, how little he felt strained by it even though he knew the weakness rising again in his core was out of exhaustion from casting - yet it didn’t prompt his hunger, his craving, like it had before. Another bird, blue this time, blue and yellow and black, sat on his arm. Its beady black eyes regarded him and he could see his distorted reflection in them; he brought his other hand through his hair and caught some of it between his fingers, and he could pull those strands off altogether, letting them fall on the sheets beneath him. White... white hair on white ordinary sheets. A human-crafted bed, he realised slowly. The wood wasn’t fancy either - it was a common bed, in a room that was anything but that. More riddles to be solved, and yet he hadn’t even cracked those he’d discovered at first. The brown sparrow landed on his finger and he lifted it carefully, examining it, the precise texture of its feathers and its full, opaque and rounded body; such a perfect craft. When had he last felt like admiring his own creations? Where was his pride from his time as an archmage, his joy at witnessing the spoils of his hard work?

Then, unexpectedly, another bird landed on him - a little white songbird with golden tips on its wing feathers, chirping and chattering as it nuzzled with his blue creation. It startled him, and his eyes darted around the room; had he been wrong about it? Was he really in a forest after all? No - no, he realised, his eyes catching the shadow of another person standing in the room now. He turned his head and nothing in the world could have prepared him for what he saw; emotion flooded him so painfully that at first he thought he’d been physically harmed, perhaps by a violent, penetrating spell he hadn’t realised was being cast. But no - this was his own doing, the doing of his heart and nothing more; it was his heart breaking and healing and breaking again in the very same moment he recognised Jaina Proudmoore beneath the lilac cape she wore, and he could barely bring himself to breathe, and his arm lowered and the birds scattered about him, flying every which way in the room. She was stunningly, gorgeously beautiful - like a ghost from his past but... older, matured now, nothing like the girl she’d been when he’d last laid eyes on her. And yet it was clear as day to him that he loved her still, so fiercely it was breaking him apart even more than the pain and sickness in him, and he craved for this to be real more than he craved or had craved for magic before... and then he realised - it was coming from her. The magic that sustained him was _hers_ , it flowed from her, he could all but feel the end of the rope tying them together now, he could almost feel _her_ just from feeling that bond between them, and although one riddle had now been solved the rest remained ever more pressing to him. How? And why?

”Jaina,” he heard himself call. 

And as he spoke her name, the rest of it flooded back... his hateful words at her in Dalaran, the grief he’d felt at the passing of his father and the unspeakable pain at the knowledge about the rest - his bitterness, all that hatred he’d felt towards Arthas but lashed out at her instead, hoping to bring her to give it all back to him, to prove that he’d been wrong about her, too. Yet here she was... her eyes upon him, examining, and in her hand sat another bird, white as snow, gold like her hair.

”It’s good to see you awake, Kael’thas,” she said simply, her voice hollow.

Her whole body was tense, not the way she’d often tensed in his presence before but... wary, as if prepared to battle him here and now. Maybe that’s what she’d come from: to shower him in birds and dreams before taking the last shot at him. No; then the link between them would not make sense. He feared the worst - that she’d kept him alive, but for the wrong reasons. Still, he pushed through the swell of emotions to respond to her, attempting the calm he’d often tried and failed to summon when speaking with her before. That tone of voice was so rough on him now, so unused, like gentleness no longer belonged to him at all.

”Call me Kael, Jaina; how many times must I ask?”

The briefest hint of a smile flickered on her, and perhaps encouraged by it she took a step further into the room. That last bird she’d been holding was released into the room; it joined the rest at circling the ceiling.

”I should now more than ever call you simply Your Highness, Your Highness; you were only a prince when we last spoke, and now, you are the leader of your people.”

So many heavy words; Kael didn’t know which one to tackle first. He didn’t wish to speak of this but truly, what else could they have shared as their first words to one another after all these years? 

”I am afraid I must insist,” he said instead, disappointing himself and likely disappointing her too. ”I believe few of ’my people’ would name me their prince now, and I would like to avoid being reminded of it with every sentence you speak. It is... beyond all my hopes and dreams that we should meet again, Jaina. Let us not mar it with politics.”

”I would love nothing better,” Jaina replied, her voice grim, ”however - I am afraid nothing is more pressing, or more appropriate, for us to discuss than politics. You must understand that under present circumstances I cannot say for sure whether I share this room with an old friend... or an enemy not only of myself but all that I stand for and wish to protect - a servant of no less than the Burning Legion that seeks to destroy all that I hold dear, or, indeed, everything altogether.”

Strangely, Kael didn’t hesitate in responding.

”Selama ashal’anore; you know the burden I bear, Jaina. All I have done has been to serve my people.”

Jaina’s expression hardened, yet she moved closer once more, standing now no further than an arm’s reach away from the bed.

”Then I must inform you that your plan was undone last night. The Shattered Sun Offensive was victorious, and Kil’jaeden has not risen. The Burning Legion has been denied access into our realm once more.”

Kael’thas expected a surge of anger - rage so blinding that it took its time to come - and yet he waited for nothing. He _felt_ nothing. It surprised him; this should have shocked him, or at least... evoked some sort of emotion in him, and yet there was nothing, nothing at all.

”I see,” he said slowly instead, and Jaina’s brows lifted ever so slightly in surprise. ”And what of the Sunwell?”

She considered her next words carefully, and he grew impatient waiting; this, it seemed, he did care about. Kil’jaeden could wait but this - what had come of that spark of power manifested in the girl, Anveena? If the master had been barred entry, then what of the source of energy that had been reserved for his coming? But he couldn’t press her - if only she’d speak - say _something_ , anything!

”Jaina!”

She startled, her eyes sharply rising back to him, and he instantly regretted the sharpness in his voice.

”Please,” he offered then, trying to soften his snap; ”I must know. It is important.”

Jaina lifted her chin and swallowed, the pretense of casualness shedding from her now. She looked like a warrior all of a sudden, nothing like a girl and nothing like a lady, either, but a soldier weathered by wars he hadn’t been a part of.

”Your captured naaru had one more blessing to give to your people,” she spoke coolly then, ”The Sunwell has been reignited in the name of the Light.”

”So it was not all for nothing, then,” Kael’thas replied thoughtfully. He felt calmer in an instant although his entire body was somehow... stinging, like prickled with needles. It took him a moment to realise it was Jaina’s magic that was prickling him so angrily. His eyes turned for the ceiling again and he reached out, summoning his brown sparrow to sit on his fingertip. ”Pity - about the plans.”

He hated how much anger he could sense in her. He hated, too, the lack of anger or _any_ reaction within himself. He should have felt something, but no; it was all the same. He’d served his purpose. Kil’jaeden would see him destroyed for his failures. What use was it to get angry about it? He’d failed, and yet - he’d been victorious. The Sunwell... reignited. He couldn’t help the smile on him as he brought his fingers around the bird on his palm, caging it within his grasp. Yes - it had all worked out in the end, hadn’t it? Another thought occurred to him, resurfacing from his earlier concerns that had - ironically - appeared more pressing to him than the fate of his kingdom and his servitude and debt to his master. 

”Well, now that you have brought me up to date, may I speak my mind?” he asked.

Jaina... bristled. She prepared herself, tension rising in her like the fur on the back of an angry cat.

”What is it, then?” she asked despite it.

”It is perhaps too late now, yet I would like to get this out of the way before - well, before we inevitably fall into another argument about politics,” Kael’thas began, his voice yet again pleasant but underlined with his displeasure and the pain that still throbbed in his body. He attempted to cull this bitter tone before continuing. ”I am sure you remember the displeasure of our last encounter.”

”Oh, Kael’thas...” she started, but he gestured with his hand to silence her, and fall into silence she did in an instant, as if enchanted.

”I have deeply, bitterly regretted the words I spoke to you. Nothing... Jaina, nothing I said was - that was not the man I wished you to see before my departure. The shame of it has followed me all these years. I hope - I can only hope that they have not haunted you as heavily.”

Now, her relaxation was obvious to him. The prickling he could feel with her mana sparking within them both quieted, too; it was still there, a restless energy that clashed with his, but it was softer now.

”I have always known,” she told him, her voice a little breathless. ”I did not take it personally, Kael; your anger was never aimed towards me and I never took it as such. I knew how badly you were hurting... I simply stumbled in your way at the worst possible moment. I regret what I said too... that in turn I could offer you no comfort whatsoever. In fact, I fear I made your pain worse. So if I must forgive you for the hurt you did not cause me, then allow me to apologise for not being there for you when you most needed me.”

”But you tried,” Kael’thas replied. He could not miss for a heartbeat the way she’d called him by his preferred name, and in its wake, he felt as if taken back to that time. Even here in the middle of her enchantments it was as if he was there, pacing the floor again, trying to make sense of his whole world collapsing. How fitting it was to go back to that place now - and how desperately he wished that name would have taken him someplace different, someplace better than there. ”It should never have been your responsibility to bear my anger. You showed only care for me, when all I could see was all that I’d lost; your crime was that you dared to value me in a moment where I valued everything else above myself, and your insisting that the suffering of my people wouldn’t have been made better by my presence by their side, that even there I would have been of no use, that I was so insignificant that I did not even deserve to fall with my people... insulted me at the time.”

She nodded.

”I realised this as I spoke it,” she said, ”I wished I could have taken it back.”

He shook his head in return.

”Perhaps I should have listened more carefully. Many things could be different now. It doesn’t matter. Look at me; this is what I’ve sacrificed in my drive for revenge and redemption for what we’ve suffered... I am truly nothing now. Forsaken by my own people! But saved - by you. Why?”

Jaina looked away. She wet her lips with a quick touch of her tongue, and the act had him drowning in her for a moment - until she noticed, and he had to avert his eyes again. A wreck like him... it felt as if he had no right to even rest his eyes on her anymore.

”Your people,” Jaina began after a moment’s silence that no doubt resulted from him watching her so keenly, ”sought me out and brought you to me out of nothing but love and loyalty to you. Your people, Kael, wanted nothing but your safety so fiercely that they all but broke their vows no matter the side they looked at it from: they turned their backs to you so that they could save you, and they turned their backs to your enemies for the same reason. Your people are the most loyal, sacrificing people I’ve met - the ones through the most hardship, and yet through it all still loving, still willing to fight. Do not speak of them as if they don’t love you like you love them; love does not mean unconditional servitude but loyalty and effort and always, always wanting only the best for those we care for the most, even when we disagree with the paths they’ve taken.”

There she was, lecturing _him_ about love. His gaze returned over her and he fought the feelings within for some time before, bitterly, uttering: ”Is that what you feel for Arthas?”

”Still, Kael’thas? After all these years?” Jaina asked, sighing.

She seemed to have lost her fear of him somewhat, or at least now she forgot about it as she sat down on the edge of his bed. She was... so close - and so warm, and so alive, and so much more than she’d ever been before. Her presence took his breath away, no matter how much he wanted it to not do that.

”Still,” he confirmed.

She kept her eyes to the enchanted forest around them, thinking. Finally, when she spoke, it was not about Arthas or Kael’thas or anybody else.

”How did I do?” she asked instead, her voice absent. ”I never came back to Quel’Thalas with you, so I didn’t know - but I wanted to do my best impression.”

He gazed at the walls with her for some time.

”You did brilliantly,” he said then, ”I was almost fooled for a moment.”

”Almost,” she repeated thoughtfully.

”Almost.”

They sat in silence for some time, side by side, as if there was nothing to be said anymore between them. Her presence, the longer it lingered, was as painful to Kael’thas as his dying body, but he feared the moment it would end. Eventually, with another sigh, Jaina pulled herself back up and left his bedside. 

”You would do well to rest more, Kael. I wouldn’t dream to keep you up any longer than this. It has likely been much too long already.”

”Should you take your leave, will you spare the birds for my company, at least?” he asked her, his voice now effortlessly soft, almost... submissive.

She turned to look at him, examining him for a moment before, once more, his words managed to tempt what appeared to be a rare smile out of her. Years had changed her, although - Kael’thas had to suppress a grimace at the thought - hardly anywhere near as much as they had changed him. But there were unspoken things about her that, as much as it pained him to admit, he truly didn’t know. It had been so long since he’d last heard of her... of anything relating to the world outside his own. Only the fate of Quel’Thalas and his followers had concerned him, and now that she was there - really there, not as a mirage from his past but as living flesh and blood... so much had changed, so much about her was now foreign to him, and the more he looked at her the less he could recognise her. This was not the Jaina from his past, despite her mannerisms and the voice that she used with him; power radiated from her, and the stance of the warrior had never left her once it had first appeared. She carried herself so differently, and she was now a woman, undeniably. He felt in him the strength of her magic, that which was so much more vitalizing than the fel energy he’d siphoned from the crystals or even what he could now only believe _was_ in fact the Sunwell, and there seemed to be an endless amount of it, a depth of power he had never sensed about her before. What had he missed?

Jaina lifted her gaze to the birds, then - as if subconsciously, although Kael’thas knew she intended every move - she pulled another one out from under her cape and released it in the room. It circled around the prince’s head before landing on his shoulder, and he suppressed a start as its small claws pressed into his sore skin. It was so warm and soft, and yet imbued with magic; he could feel its weight even though he knew it had to be light as air.

”Yes, Your Highness,” Jaina said calmly, ”You may have the birds.”


	4. Water to Fire

* * *

  
She briskly walked away from the room and got as far as the entrance hall before her feet went out from under her and, grasping the railing of the staircase up, she collapsed onto the floor and let the tears come. She wasn’t sure why she was crying, but she cried, long and from the heart, all the tension and stress and all these feelings she didn’t know what to do with pouring out of her in the shape of water. She tasted the salt upon her lips as she licked them, gasping for air, and she would have given anything to have a hand on her shoulder now, a caring friend to rest her head against, but she was alone in this house, alone if not for _him_. And there was nothing worse than that, really; the way he’d spoken to her had wounded her somewhere deep, as there was no denying it now, this was the same prince she’d once called her friend, yet so twisted by the years that had followed that she could not shake the sensation of wrongness whenever he spoke and even merely in the way he looked at her. And to ask about Arthas! After all these years! She didn’t want to think of him, or them, or be reminded of it; she could only assume he didn’t, either, and yet he’d brought him up. Curse that, curse him and curse Arthas, curse the Burning Legion, curse it all to hell. She could _hear_ them in him, the voices of the demons whose energies he’d swallowed, they’d made him again in their image, sparing only his mannerisms and his voice, yet leaving behind this... she wasn’t sure what it was exactly that so alarmed her but it was too much for her to bear. 

Breathing in gasps, she pulled herself up on the lowest step of the stairs and wiped her face dry, her hair disheveled and breaking loose from the braid she'd put it in to appear less like she'd slept on the floor that night. She didn’t feel like a Proudmoore today. She didn’t feel like herself at all. And quite desperately, she wanted to share this secret with someone, anyone, to have someone understand what she was facing here - she thought of everyone she could have told and came up with no one, not even people she wanted to tell but couldn’t. She’d rarely been this lonely, this isolated, and the mansion on the rocks only served to make her feel even more so. Somehow, it all made her think of Antonidas: if he’d still been there with her, maybe he would have known what to do. How ironic it was that now she was in his position - she was supposed to know what to do, she was a leader and a mentor too. Was that how he’d felt looking upon the Scourge at his doorsteps on that final day? Had he, too, wished for someone to tell him what to do then, how to proceed?

There were, of course, two who shared her secret... she thought back to the ranger she'd now met in person, and the way Kael had spoken of him, although she wasn’t sure if Kael’thas knew who’d been in charge of this whole plan. That man, whoever he was, loved the prince so much - so deeply - that he was still willing to die to give him a chance at life. Despite everything that Kael’thas had done, despite his denouncement, this one elf and no doubt many like him still _loved_ him, and Jaina understood them. That’s why it hurt so much, seeing him this way; she, too, loved him still. Every time she could glimpse his former self from between the cracks she hurt for him, and everything the Sun King spoke in his stead was like a dagger to her heart. What could it possibly be like for those who’d been much closer to him this entire time, and had had to see him changing little by little, each reaching their limits one by one as he sunk deeper into darkness... deeper into the embrace of the Legion. Still, there he had sat when she’d entered the room, holding creatures of his own creation - birds, associated with light magic - and for a moment, she had seen him as he’d been before. Her enchanted light had coloured his thin hair with the flames of the sun again, bringing back some of the gold he’d lost from it, and when he hadn’t looked at her she could still imagine his proud profile against that light, not the emaciated look that now distorted his beauty. 

Was it still possible to call forwards the good, the warmth in him? The birds had brought hope to her but his coldness and anger had banished that hope as soon as it had been born, yet now as she caught her breath there on the stairs, it didn’t look quite that dim; she’d always wanted to see the best in people. She still wanted to see the best in him, too.

*

”Have you heard the news about the Sunwell yet? About the demon they tried to summon there?”

”From what I understand, the prince is still on the run. They said they defeated him in combat, but wasn’t he one of the Kirin Tor’s finest before? A powerful mage like that...”

”Didn’t you know Kael’thas Sunstrider personally, Jaina? I’d hate to be too bold, the subject must be sore -”

The darkness faded as Jaina got up from her bed, illuminating the master bedroom with a glowing orb of fire that enveloped the heart of a candle in a holder before her eyes. She rubbed at her forehead, cursing the _ease_ of magical communications; if she’d receive on more question about this, she’d go mad for certain, and yet there was no stopping them. She’d read so many letters and now when she finally tried to allow herself some sleep, any rest at all, everyone in the know - or who thought himself or herself in the know, anyway - had already filled her head with their never-ending curiosity, their well-meaning yet awfully prodding questions and enlightenments. To hell with it! Let them ask Kael’thas directly, if he’d ever get strong or _stable_ enough to leave her mansion again.

The thought stopped her in her tracks, seated on the edge of her bed; her wrist pressed against her stinging eye and she sighed deeply. Yes, now _that_ would be an answer worth hearing. Surely Kael’thas would keep her secret if only possible - or he would have before all this - but would it be possible at all? Furthermore, what would happen if they’d end up enemies; all they’d ever been was awkward friends, and the jump from that into hostility was... it now seemed more likely than the alternative. The thought chilled Jaina. She was hosting the servant of the Burning Legion in her house, and no matter how weak and vulnerable the prince was now, he’d grow stronger again, it already seemed all but certain. He’d woken up: the worst was over, so where would he go from here? She couldn’t do anything more to help him, and all she could offer him now was... tolerance, her ear at the very least if not her understanding, but Kael’thas had never been particularly good at sharing his inner thoughts. If it would be his choice to remain loyal to her enemies, she could give him nothing more: it would indeed make them enemies, plain and simple, and there would be no room for negotiation. Jaina Proudmoore, ever the diplomat, would never negotiate with demons, and if it was a demon speaking through the blood elf then there was truly nothing more for them to discuss. 

She concentrated upon the flow of mana between their beings, eyes closing for a moment in exhaustion. The tiredness that now plagued her was not lifting, it was ever her most faithful companion - but she could feel him at the end of that rope tightening within her, his magic as hers fed into it. She wondered if he was awake, and a certain discomfort she’d tried to resist since he’d arrived there stirred within her once more. It was uncomfortable to say at least to know that she was alone there with him, not only because she’d never particularly wanted that to happen and it weighted on her with an anxious sense of dread at all times, but most of all because she was so keenly aware of not knowing what he’d become since she’d known him. She’d heard nothing good of him since he’d returned to Quel’Thalas those years ago: first the destruction of the Sunwell had had her heart aching for him even more and then the news of him clashing with Arthas well after she’d already left the Eastern Kingdoms - the way he’d sought vengeance so far away when his people had most needed him had not sat with her well, and she’d sensed trouble coming, but ultimately her thoughts had been focused elsewhere and when she’d heard that he'd settled in the Outland, she’d found herself... saddened, shocked by the circumstances that had led to it, yet not all too surprised that he'd made the decision to stay. He seemed to want to be as far away from Quel’Thalas and his throne as possible, a prince even after his father’s death had left the kingdom crownless - his regent had been more present with the elves since as far as Jaina had heard from them. That had seemed both strange to her, as Kael’thas had never showed more love and devotion to anything but his people and his kingdom, and oddly fitting to whom he’d always been; reclusive, introverted and often more occupied with his books and magic than those with living souls around him. There had often been no telling what he was up to at all, that much he spent his time alone - what time they did spend together, however, had never made her think this was the fate he’d been headed for. Of course, in the end it had hardly been a choice he’d freely made. The betrayals he'd suffered must have left deep wounds in his trust, and Jaina couldn’t condemn him for it.

She found herself up on her feet, adjusting the sheets over her bed before lifting the candle to follow her and light her way downstairs. The mansion was groaning under the whipping winds coming down hard from the seaside, struggling to stay upright on the small island left at the ocean’s mercy, and she could almost taste the salt in the air. It was not Quel’Thalas, she thought, no matter how many golden trees she’d paint on the walls with magic. The chill of the brewing storm had her bare feet cold against the floorboards, the draft creeping up her ankles and shins underneath her nightrobes. She wasn’t sure what her end goal was - more than anything she just wanted to check on her _guest_ , if only to be sure he was still in his room.

When she walked down the final corridor towards the former servant’s quarters, she could already see light like fire flashing from underneath the door. She pressed herself against the wall before the door and breathed in deep, eyes closed as her candle quietly dimmed until the flame was no more. It had barely touched the floor when a shadow moved in front of the remaining light shining into the corridor, and Jaina's eyes settled upon that. She swallowed thickly before pressing her hand upon the door's hande and she pushed it open with her weight. Soundlessly, it opened into the room; the enchanted forest bathed in blue light from the overcast sky hanging low about the ceiling. Jaina noticed two things in an instant: first, the bed was empty. Second, her white and gold birds were perched upon it untouched... but the blue and brown birds were nowhere to be found.

"It's strange how one can sense the presence of true power," Kael's voice came from somewhere nearby, startling her so badly that she jumped. "You didn't need to knock and yet... I could feel you all the way down from your bedroom. Like a moth to a flame."

Briefly, Jaina wondered which one of them was the moth and which one the flame as her eyes stuck to the form of the blood elf standing in front of the fireplace, the smoke of which disappeared into the white trunk of one of her trees. As she closed the door behind her, she noticed a lot of things in the room had changed since her last visit - there was a rock now where the table had been before, and through the forest, she could just catch a glimpse of the ocean... and the shoreline of an island in it. Still, nothing about what she'd initially created had been altered much. The sky was the same, and so were the trees. He'd spared her imperfections, she realised, and the thought made her feel a certain way that she couldn't really decipher in the moment.

When he'd spoken, Kael's voice had come out low and thoughtful, yet somehow thinner than before. He was turning to her now, his slim body's shape changed by the way his torn robes flowed down over him. Standing, he was still visibly taller than her, and his posture had not changed. Strangely... he looked healthier already. She was almost certain it was not merely the lighting - it appeared as if simply removing the corrupt crystal from him had reversed some of his transformation. Still, she could see his hands shaking even as he kept them down, his arms straight and appearing relaxed. Sometimes, he'd move slightly - to cover a twitch perhaps, or some other symptom of his condition. He was watching her intently, and she caught herself from doing the same in return.

"You've grown quite impressive since our last meeting, Jaina."

"And you have lost weight," Jaina pointed out dryly, "about that of a kingdom’s worth. We have to talk, Kael."

"I'm most pleased to find that you've finally taken to using that name."

Jaina dismissed the remark although its warmth had shaken her somewhat. She was determined to have this conversation now.  
"You asked me why I saved you," she began, "I didn't answer then."

"No," Kael replied, his voice quiet, "you didn't. I would still prefer that you would."

She stepped to her side and sat down on the bed, running her hand over the knit blankets before speaking.  
"We were friends once," she spoke then, "and while I could never be for you what you wanted of me, you would never hold it against me."

"Until I did."

"Until," Jaina said, her voice hinting at impatience, "your world collapsed, and I was caught in the crossfire. I couldn't help you then. And, if anything, as I have stated I fear that my foolish attempts at calming your pain only served to make it worse. Would you blame me for thinking I played a part in this all? For bearing guilt for not being able to change anything, anything at all, if not for the worse."

She could _feel_ him pick apart her words. His mind had always been the most terrifying thing about him; it was keen and brilliant but completely hidden away from her, she could never quite read him, and that secrecy, that closedness, had made her afraid of him.

"You were not responsible," Kael said then, his voice calculative, perhaps still looking for a catch in her words. "Your _beloved_ was, and I blamed you because I could reach you and not him. What could you have done to change the brat's mind? He'd tasted power. You were simply a girl and he'd appointed himself a king. What could you have done? No; I will not have you asking for forgiveness for what you never did. Have him do it instead. Have him kneel for it so I can finally cut off his head."

"Then I will ask for nothing but one thing, Kael'thas."

"And what would that be?"

"Whatever you do now, don't let it be on the same path you started that day. This I _beg_ of you. If you ever loved me, Kael - do me this one favour and don't be like Arthas."

"I've never been like him," Kael spat; his voice was like a hiss, and his fingers, ending in long claws like talons, slashed the air casting angry shadows across the room from the fireplace although he'd barely moved. "I will _never_ be like him."

"Then don't listen to the demons!"

Jaina watched him, despair as clear in her eyes as the fire's reflection, but he was looking away now - he'd looked away the moment she'd finished her words. Yes, he was shaking, it was impossible to miss now; his fingers trailed through his hair and she remembered how full it had once been, how strong and _golden_ , and now she could almost see through it.

"You don't... understand," he spoke to the fireplace, turning away from her. "You don't understand what we - what I - have been through, and you never will."

"Kil'jaeden will give you nothing, Kael, _nothing_. Even I know that! I've fought demons, I've seen enough of the destruction they bring, I know _enough_ that I would never, not over my dead body, trust one such as them."

"Not over you dead body?" Kael repeated, "How about thousands of your people's? When you'd see them suffering, when you'd feel it in your own body... this - this unbearable weakness, this _grief_ that never lifts... would you still think yourself strong enough to decline his offer?"

Softly and with grace that brought Jaina back several years, the man turned to face her again. He watched her and she could really see him there now, even through his starved appearance, the _glow_ of him underneath it all, the same he'd worn all the time she'd known him before.

"I would have made you my queen, Jaina. In a better place - on a better timeline."

"I could never love you. You knew this and you must still know it."  
She'd never been bold enough to say it so directly, but he'd never spoken this way to her, either - perhaps it had been simple politeness and a mutual pact of understanding between them that had now broken. Kael'thas nodded, his expression distant but not as closed as she'd expected to see it. 

"Arthas was your first love, wasn't he?"  
The name was like poison on his lips.  
"He doesn't have to be your last."

As he spoke his eyes met hers and she found herself wishing they'd still been cerulean blue, or at least anything but the green of fel fire. Her expression darkened.  
  
"I will not change my mind on this, Kael. Especially not after everything else that _has_ changed."

He laughed. It surprised her, not only because it was unexpected after her words, but also because it sounded so... lively, so natural. He waved his hand.

"No," he said, "I wouldn't dream of it. What am I now? Broken, denounced, a mere shadow of my former self. I would not think to ask and I would refuse if you offered. No. But it could have been beautiful. Perhaps that grants me an ounce of comfort."

"I cannot imagine your people celebrating such a union," Jaina replied, her voice once more dry although she felt it carry a hint of a smile. "Your kind has never been too fond of outsiders. I would have ruined the bloodline."

"So you would have. I wonder what my father would have said."  
A shadow crossed the prince's features, wiping away the memory of who he'd once been from Jaina's mind and returning her to the present.  
"I wonder - what he would say now."

"He would tell you to spend your time in better company," Jaina told him in an instant. "I didn't know Anasterian but I doubt he would have never wished to see his son and heir swearing loyalty to demons and their kin."

She felt a tinge of unease again as Kael'thas moved. He walked not like she'd expected, in his usual light manner as if he was untouched by gravity but like a very old man whose knees and back were too stiff to bend anymore and made each step too painful to take without consideration. She wanted to look away but then his gaze flickered to her and he offered her a smile, one that told her he was perfectly aware she'd looked, and - he looked like himself again, if only for a moment. Sighing, he settled on the end of the bed, the mattress letting out a soft brush of a sound as he did so, and his fingertips sought the cloth that covered his hair. He slipped one long-clawed finger underneath and pulled it away, folding it between his fingers before leaving it thus on his lap. His hair was as thin and colourless underneath as were the strands that hung down to frame his features, but... Jaina couldn't help at least a twinge of recognition flashing within her again now that it was all free. The rest of his robes were tattered and darkened, and he had a strange smell about him like thunder. It had to be the lingering smell of fel magic, she reasoned - strong magic always had a scent about it no matter what kind it was.

"Was that why you came to me?" Kael asked then, the smile all but faded now and his gaze wandering away from her. "To remind me of my many failures?"

"No. There are other things."

"So we may discuss them. I have nothing but time."

Jaina shook her head, then lowered her gaze to her own hands. Pale, she thought. Pale but not grey and parchment white like his.  
"There is a future," she began, her voice steadier now, more official, as if she was addressing a council. "It needs to be spoken of."

"Ah, a future. Yes, maybe; forgive me if I remain pessimistic, Jaina."

Her eyes flickered upon the blood elf's features, then cast downward again. Breathing out slowly she pulled her shoulders back and straightened her posture before taking a better look at him, examining and firm.

"What will you do with it?" she asked him. "Where will you go?"

"You speak as if I have many options," Kael chuckled coldly, "I've served my usefulness here. Where, indeed? I did not _ask_ to be revived to this world. Perhaps it would have been better had I stayed dead."

"But you were never dead."

"Because you did not allow it - for your guilt," he pointed out, and although his voice was soft it cut her. "I predict my remaining time here is still all but borrowed; my master will not rest easy knowing I have failed him and survived. The death I will suffer at his mercy will be a thousand times worse than that afforded to me by this 'Shattered Sun'. Yes, I have thought of it - this future - and every which way I examine it, I see myself wishing I had missed out. Can you blame me, Jaina?"

"Your _master_ has been thwarted. He's lost his gamble."

"And yet he has a long reach, one which does not require him to be _personally_ present to ensure that his will is done."

"So that's it, then?" Jaina scoffed, "You will simply keel over and die instead of fighting. Truly, you make your father proud, Kael'thas."

His eyes flashed, and she could see the trembling of his arms and hands worsen even as his fingers bound into fists. For a moment she was prepared to see fire in his grip, and when she caught herself again, she realised she'd been conjuring her own magic to counter it already; her palms felt warm with the essence of her power gathering over them. She had to force herself to let go of it, to let it dissipate and scatter, but she was sure he'd picked up on that surge if not with his attunement to magic then simply because that surge of power had most certainly travelled through the link they shared. Yet she saw the tension in him breaking once more - despite everything he was at least still in control, determined not to let himself be the first to strike. Or perhaps, a though hit her... perhaps he was simply afraid he'd lose. This was his safest bet now while he still relied on her; he'd need time to recover still, although she could feel how much stronger he'd already become over the past day. This thought made her turn towards him, and if he'd been preparing to give her back what she'd served him, she cut him off before he got the chance.

"So you do not have a plan," she said, her voice still strained, "Maybe it will help you form one should I clarify the terms of our current arrangement."

"Spoken like a true politician," he replied coolly. "You're taking after _your_ father, are you not?"

The words pierced like a stab through her chest, but she refused to show it.

"Perhaps it endears me to you to think of me as the girl I once was, Kael'thas, but I am a grown woman now with responsibilities that reach beyond my own matters. Your presence here complicates things."

"I am sure it does."

"I know that you are aware of the link we share by now," Jaina continued, "With the Sunwell restored, I see little reason to keep us so tethered. Furthermore, and I'm sure you understand - as long as I cannot say for certain that you _are_ still my friend, I cannot take the risk of empowering an enemy. I want you to choose your side, Kael; I can only hope you'll choose mine."

Kael'thas turned his head, his eyes seeking the fire burning in the white tree's trunk again. Now he was a closed book to her, his expression empty if not for the weight of thought lingering over it, and he took his time before speaking - it kept her on the edge, ever uncomfortable as she braced herself for whatever it was that he was keeping from her. Finally he let out a near soundless breath and gazed down at the cloth on his lap and the burnt texture of his robes underneath it.

"I would hope that by now you know that I would rather my fate be anything but to face you as my enemy, Jaina. Do not think me stupid; I know where I've aligned myself and I know now as well as ever that my choices have not made me more favourable in your eyes. I, too, have responsibilities that reach far beyond my own matters, however... as the daughter of a noble you should understand this. I've done all that I could to serve my people. Would I choose them over you again? Yes. I would. In a heartbeat."

"But you didn't choose _them_ , Kael'thas. They've shown you as much! You disregarded them at every turn, ignored what _they_ wanted because you had your grand vision to fulfill. Your people never wanted the allies you chose for them - first the Betrayer, then the Legion - and in choosing them you have turned your back to your people, all on your own! They did not betray you, but you let them down. I'm no longer just a simple daughter of someone important, Kael, I am the Lady of my own city, and I know that a good leader listens to his people first and acts with their best in his heart. How can you say you did all this for _them_?"

In an instant, Jaina found herself standing straight and sharp. It was in reaction to Kael'thas facing her in this manner first, flame as bright as sunlight trapped in his grip; water glistened above her hand in turn, an ever-fluctuating orb cold as the ocean that surrounded them ready in her command. Her heart was beating hard but there was no fear in her at all - she felt nothing, in fact, nothing but readiness and acceptance for what would come next. She remembered what she'd told the ranger now, distantly as if a voice was speaking in a different room: _I will accept the consequences of my choice._

"What are you going to do?" Kael asked her, eyes on her orb, "Drench me?"

"No," Jaina snarled, "Try me."

"I would rather have it _not_ come to that. I was always your superior. Killing you is not how I wish to begin my second chance in this world."

Perhaps it was the exhaustion, but his words _infuriated_ her. Jaina lifted her hand and the orb in her grasp swelled, and in reaction to it, Kael'thas spun the fire in his own into a wild, sparkling flame; she could see fire in a blade’s shape in the midst of it and the sharp edge made her heart still for a moment, but she'd already started and there was no going back now. The water deflected the fire's heat, boiling at impact but sparing her from more than the warmth of the steam it released, and as the magic collided, she _tugged_ at the link between them. Instantly, she could see him fold over; her pull at the mana within him seemed to have all but knocked him breathless, and the blade of fire he'd wielded dispersed. He let out a breathless laugh and leaned his hand onto the bed once more, shaking from head to toe.

"Perhaps you were my superior once - in fire magic," Jaina answered, her voice as shaky and breathless as he was, "but I've always had an affinity for water first and foremost."

She watched him sit down on the bed and realised she was still holding very tight on the stream of magic between them, all but exhausting its flow to him; it felt like strangulation, like she was physically preventing him from drawing breath. The power she held over him made her feel strange, and it was a strangeness she didn't find herself very fond of. Carefully she let her hold loosen again.

"You didn't strike in earnest," she pointed out then.

"You were threatening me with _water_ , Jaina. Do you really think I'd burn you for that?"

"You always had one weakness," Jaina spoke dryly, "You have a tendency to underestimate the things you think beneath you."

"Yet I've never thought you beneath me," Kael replied just as dryly. "Perhaps _that_ is my true weakness."

Against her will, she found her frustration dissipating once more. She followed his lead now, seating herself back on the bed within a polite distance from him as the weather outside turned for rain. Enchanted rain fell from the ceiling, too, matching the sound of the beginnings of a downpour beyond the window. It was dry, however; only the vision of rain, but not the essence of it.

"I need you to want something," Jaina prompted him, "Whatever happened in the past is just that - the past. How _do_ you wish to start your second chance? I cannot ungrant it, nor would I, had I the chance to make this choice all over; I only hope that you can do something with what you've been given. Something that I will not have to regret."

She watched him lift his hand in front of him, and for some time he simply examined his palm, perhaps seeing something on it that Jaina couldn't. She waited - at least his silence meant that he'd listened now. Finally, he broke it once more.

"A change of attire, perhaps, would make for a good beginning."

She wished she could have spotted just a little glimpse of the blue behind the fel fire when he aimed his gaze at her, but the green of his eyes was piercing and vivid, almost white in the center where the magic shone through his pupils.

"I hardly have anything of your size," Jaina replied with subdued jest in her tone, "or your style."

The corner of his mouth twitched a little.  
"Then maybe I should go home," he said, his voice - colourless, too calm for Jaina's liking, yet not hostile. She couldn't decide how to read it: damn his ability to lock his emotions so tightly. Now if ever she wished she could have seen directly into his mind instead. As if trying to, she looked deep into the fire in his eyes and let her expression reflect the suspicions in her mind and her hesitance to trust him, and yet he gave nothing to her in return, nothing but a silence and then, suddenly, a _stillness_ as well. The link between them had broken, effortlessly and without a warning, and once it was gone he stood up again, fisted his shaking hands and moved away from her, away from her reach.

"I will not forget this," he said in that same unreadable tone of voice, his eyes upon her still. Then as if he'd never been there at all he was gone, leaving in his wake nothing but shimmering gold sparks that faded and disappeared before Jaina's eyes. She didn't move for a long time, wondering when and how she'd next have to face him. It didn't feel like this would be the last time.


	5. Old Friends

* * *

  
Silvermoon's shadow cast against the backdrop of a deep velvet sky like a ghost of the giant that Kael'thas remembered it once having been. Reawakened, rebuilt and reborn, its spiraling towers broke apart the skyline, many of the windows still lit even though the hour was late. He'd felt this before, this strangeness, this _unbelonging_ on the streets of this city; the wrongness of it in the details that closely imitated what it had once been yet could never duplicate or replace it, as if he was walking in a distorted dream where something was always, always amiss. Now more than ever he felt out of place there, as if the city's very streets were rejecting him; he stood in front of the Spire looking up at it and the moonlight irritated his eyes. It was too bright, too blinding behind the silhouette: he found himself longing for the seclusion of the heavily-curtained Magister's Terrace, its ever-dim lights and vibrant yet gentle magic breaking apart the air. Here too he could hear magic humming. It was everywhere, like lashes against his skin. He felt thirsty for it, wanting nothing more than to latch his palms against the pavement over one of they leylines crossing underneath the city like a parasite attaching to a vein, wishing he could drink it dry if only to stop the temptation, that constant, painful awareness of its presence so near him, so... so far out of reach. Forbidden.

In the distance, calmingly and yet infuriatingly, the Sunwell's reignited light cast its beam into the night. He didn't see it from the buildings but he could feel it, yet it wasn't the same it had once been; it was no longer pure arcane, but the naaru - M'uru - had diluted it with the Light. It wasn't enough. No wonder he'd needed Jaina's magic so desperately that tearing away from it had felt as if tearing away at his own limbs. This was nothing, nothing in comparison to what Kil'jaeden had fed him. Perhaps his memory of even what the Sunwell had once been was interrupted by the knowledge of what the fel could feel like... this didn't take away the ache, the burning want for more. It didn't make him feel invincible. Had it ever? Had he simply now tasted true power, and thus in its absence could also feel the true meaning of weakness?

Invisibility was draining at him like a tap in his veins. He could _feel_ his magic dripping from him, shimmering away into the darkness, and it was an unpleasant experience like bleeding on the ground. So long he'd spent simply casting when necessary, to hold as much of his powers within, calming and soothing away the pain, and to ensure he'd never have to cope with emptiness again. The bliss and joy of simply experiencing his magic again like he'd felt when he'd summoned the birds before was gone now; he'd felt it fading even as he'd drained their fragile shapes back into his being, rejoined the droplets of power within them with his own. He'd spared Jaina's - there wasn't enough hunger in him to drain what she'd given to him as a gift, from her own magic. Now that magic was a world away from him and here he stood, all but bathing in the energies of his once unparalleled kingdom, wanting nothing more than to drink it all in, all at once, to give in...

He drew a shaky breath in. The air here was fresh, colder than what he'd grown used to in the Outland and then within the safety of his sanctuary. The Nether had always burned at him, either with its unforgiving weather or with its raw and unrefined powers. This was a natural warmth like that of a cloudy afternoon in the heart of summer, an ever-present pleasantness that the enchantments of Quel'Thalas had upheld for thousands of years, and it was so unlike the extremities that had molded him into this form he'd taken that he barely recognised it anymore. He lifted his shaking hand again, visible only to his own eyes, and tried to will it into stillness. His skin was healing. He could no longer see scabs on it, merely fading scars, an irritated red mark at worst where the skin had broken most recently. His chest, on the other hand... he avoided looking at the grim, thick scar that spread over his sternum. The whole area burned still, like he'd turned his own flames against himself. It prickled, stung like stabwounds, and somewhere beneath it his heartbeat rushed the blood in his veins frantically like engaged in a losing battle. It ached, too, but with the all-too familiar throbbing of grief that he wished to drown in a rush of arcane, and yet... he resisted. Trembling and weak, surrounded by this opulence of power, he _resisted._ Something stopped him from draining the power that he needed so badly he could have killed for it, something stronger than that urge - was it guilt? It felt like guilt... or shame. He'd felt it since he'd seen Jaina for the first time, that nagging feeling of a heavy conscience in front of her, a fear of showing how deep this hunger had rooted itself within him. She'd been like a boundless fountain to him from which he could drink but the smallest of mouthfuls, barely a taste to quench what was an all-consuming thirst, and it was that desire to _drain_ her that had made him feel like a monster. Wretched. 

He'd resisted. He'd resist now, too.

Kael'thas lowered his gaze from the offensive, blinding brightness of the moon back towards the Spire and its endless number of rooms viewing the Court of the Sun, and for some time his gaze was stuck to the enormous fel crystal in the building's heart, its core pulsing madly against the quiet of the night. It was powering so much within the walls that nested it, its energy pouring down in streams like strings that Kael'thas could almost tug if he focused on them - pulling at them even at this distance would have been all too easy. Curse it; going inside the Spire was proving more trouble than it would be worth in the end, and he was acting like a beast in the face of the challenge. There was something inside him that had all but broken, fundamentally and perhaps irreparably as he feared, but the least he could do was to spite that brokenness - this was the throne of his father. He'd given him a promise, kneeling at the side of his cold, stiff body laid across a simple tavern table that night, a promise that he'd do his best to make him proud. It was glaringly, painfully obvious he'd failed that promise, but despite everything he was still standing here. The least he could do was walk up the Spire with pride in who he was - with pride in the blood that his father had given him, that had come down to him from Dath’Remar Sunstrider himself, and was noble even if he had failed to shine through their shadows. Could he muster it? Once more, Kael's eyes sought out the fel gem. If he'd only tap into it and quiet that voice in the back of his head... the one feeding him these memories, this painful awareness - but he'd made up his mind. It felt as if he was trying to uproot himself when he finally pushed his body back into motion, and at least as he walked up the bridge he didn't feel like an intruder, but like he belonged. The guards did not gaze his way. Of course they didn't; none of them could so much as sense him passing. He was much, _much_ too powerful, and of course... trained: he'd been a youth once, practiced in the art of slipping past his own royal guard. These men and women had once been there to _protect_ him, but now... had they seen him... he suffocated a chuckle.

They did not see him.

The throne room was empty, as were the chambers opening to its entrance. Behind it, the inner sanctum was visible. Magical lights vibrated in the air, quietly humming as mana burned within them as he passed them, not quite managing to keep his fingers from stretching out and draining some of their glow into his own form. Someone nearby yawned; one of the guards, ending the near of his shift at midnight. Kael felt like a ghost, and maybe he was; he could have as well been to everyone in the room. A brief disturbance in the still air, a vibration against the moonlight and nothing more - a chill in the heart of one most sensitive to magical concealment. Silently, the prince made his way up the spiral walkway and laid his hands over the orb there. It rejected him fiercely, but he quieted it down, letting its magic seep into his being to taste at his blood. It couldn't help but recognise him, and instead of a single pathway multiple ones now opened for him, ready to take him wherever he wanted to go: up or down, west or east. North... or south. He ran his palm over the orb's surface and licked his dry lower lip thoughtfully. Where would he find the Grand Magister, whom had always been so resistant to early sleep? Up in the highest Spire watching the stars, or gazing at the Sunwell, deep in thought - or in the Grand Library with its crimson windows painting the night blood red? The latter seemed more likely. First, however... the orb's magic surrounded him, and with a pull at his core it moved him to a corridor almost as familiar to him as the one leading to the Grand Library. The doors were sealed, the lock vibrating with energy as Kael'thas approached it. He lifted his hand and pressed it against the door's solid form, causing the lock to dissipate. The doors opened, revealing from behind them a set of dark blue curtains, translucent and flowing in the breeze he'd unleashed.

The King's Chambers. His, although he'd only ever felt as if he was borrowing them. Dust had settled over the floors but it was finally time for Kael'thas to uncloak himself, and as he appeared behind the once more closed doors and as his shadow settled on the tiled floor delicately forming shapes like a firestorm, he felt... calm. Like he'd come to the right place at the right time. His fingers felt dry and his nails rough against his skin as he pushed them underneath his robes, shifting them off his form. He could step out of them as if they'd barely clung onto his body - he'd grown too small for his own robes, an odd thing he'd never thought of before. They were so loose upon him, and then nothing but a pile of rags on the floor; his eyes stayed upon them as he undid the shreds of his cloak and cast them aside. He could feel his ribs protruding from his body. When had he last _felt_ himself, or cared in the least what his physical being looked like - he'd worn these tattered cloths for so long he'd felt as if they were a part of him. They were burnt, torn... bloodied, no doubt, although it was impossible to differentiate between the crimson of cloth and the darker crimson of old blood in the absence of proper light. The sight of the clothes he'd shed made him shudder, and suddenly the only thing he could think of was how long ago he'd last felt the touch of water, pure warm water, over his skin; had he lost himself so completely that the base necessities of life now felt so distant he could barely connect with them? Unthinking, he shifted his hand in a careless gesture, casting whatever remained of his robes suspended in mid-air, and simply set them aflame. They burned brightly, gold and crimson threads shedding from them as their fabric came apart, and he eyed the sight with mild interest before moving his hand again - ashes scattered across the floor, spiralled along it and ushered themselves against the closed windows. The curtains resting over the glass blew away as night air crawled in. For the first time in years, if someone had looked from down below... they'd see the King's Chamber's windows wide open. The thought of catching someone's attention stirred something within Kael'thas; excitement, perhaps? Anxiety? The two weren't far apart. He ran his hand down his arm and tore his gaze off the beacon of light from Quel'Danas, now clearly visible through the window. Bath, he reminded himself; he desperately needed one.

*

There were certain things that Grand Magister Rommath could take without showing, or indeed feeling, any surprise. The days now seemed to be filled with the kinds of twists and turns of fate that he, or anyone else, could have barely envisioned in their wildest dreams, and after the Sunwell's light had once more been lit bright over the skyline... even he, regarded often as cold and cynical by others, had resumed his belief in miracles. Shadows were cast upon this victory the same as all the others that their long-suffering people had been through but a victory was such nevertheless. He couldn't recall when he'd last been this exhausted, either; the negotiations and indeed apologies had stretched on into eternity. So many changes were brewing in the horizon, and Lor'themar could hardly shoulder them alone. It was now if ever that the kingdom needed him at his brightest, and of course it was now that he could simply not rest, no matter what he did or which concoction he drank to ease his mind into sleep. He'd been awake since the morning the assault had began and stayed so in a state of anxious alarm through its whole duration, and this past day had been filled with business that had stolen away even those moments of his that he'd felt capable of simply nodding off anywhere. And now? Now he was awake again. Restless. Pacing the Sunfury Spire like a mad cat. Up the Spire. Down the Spire. Across the Spire. He'd locked himself in his chambers for what had felt like an eternity and yet, he hadn't caught a moment of sleep. Now he was going down the Spire again: a view of the city would _have_ to calm his mind. He wanted to rest his body against the golden railing of the Grand Library's reach above the kingdom and watch the clouds roll past the full moon while it was still a perfect circle. He wanted to feel the starlight caress his face. He wanted the wind and the faint scent of the Eversong Woods, still sweet as it drifted through the streets and brushed up along the Sunfury Spire's smooth, white walls.

The Library's vast, cave-like entrance opened to the sweet isolation of darkness only illuminated by the odd candle. It was best witnessed under midday's sunlight, and at night, its cavernous insides were dark like the night itself, covering the late visitors with secrecy and silence through which only the songs of the nightbirds and crickets could reach. Somewhere, faintly, Rommath could make apart the laughter of an elf echoing through the streets. How long had it been since tears had turned into smiles in this place? In all its gilded glory, Silvermoon had been a somber place, a memorial to a sacrifice no one could forget, for so long that indeed Rommath could barely imagine it differently. Yet something had shifted now. Laughter had returned, as had children; small, bright-eyed babes chasing enchantments and wisps down the streets. Recovery - healing - was possible. He'd seen it with his own eyes. As he entered the Grand Library now, his eyes sought out the skyline of the capital... but instead, they halted at a profile standing by the balcony.

For a heartbeat, the sight did not strike Rommath as odd. Surely he was not the only restless soul in this place tonight; they all had lots to think, and where better let those thoughts loose than here, in the heart of the royal archives? It was, however, but a heartbeat. In the next he could have been suffocating. Adrenaline spiked his blood like daggers piercing him and he felt energy gathering in the cups of his palms, ready to be unleashed. After that, almost instantly, grief hit him, and disbelief followed it; it could not be. It simply could _not_ be, no matter how fiercely he hoped and _feared_ that it was. 

He took another step, daring the figure to shift or disappear like a mirage into the night. It did nothing of the sort. Instead it stood still, back to him as he now realised, long overcoat barely brushing the floor of the balcony. He walked closer, enthralled by some madness that made him disregard the threat of death as he did so. That profile was unmistakable... and yet it could not be. There was no way.

Finally, the figure turned. As the only light came from behind it Rommath could still see very little of the man's features, but he recognised the way the moonlight played upon the golden - no - _silvery_ hair of the elf in front of him. He looked different, Rommath realised quickly. Thinner. Smaller. But no weaker; that realisation should have scared him, but it didn't. He took another step closer.

"I was hoping I would find you here, as I so often would find you from the libraries at Dalaran," that familiar voice called out to him. ”It seems you have not changed.”

It echoed in the vastness of the hall and yet the books muffled it, so that it seemed to be thrown back at Rommath from behind him as mere whispers. Kael'thas took a step towards him now and they met in the dark, a good long distance between them still but one that could no longer hide their features from one another. Rommath's fingers lifted up to the mask covering his face and he tugged it down until it touched his chin, and his lips parted for speech but nothing came out. His body tingled. His heart was about to burst or break and he didn't know which but he knew it to be a deadly condition should he allow it to take hold. He wanted to cast a spell. He wanted to run at the man. He wanted to cry. 

He did nothing.

"I understand that my presence here puts you in a very uncomfortable position," Kael'thas continued when Rommath didn't answer him.

The words shook the Grand Magister back into his senses.  
"Uncomfortable position?" he repeated as if to test whether his voice would still carry, and it didn't let him down. "Uncomfortable position!? No - no, no."  
He would have laughed but his breath was stuck in his chest.  
"Whatever it is that you want of me, I cannot oblige; I've made my choice, the choice between serving you and serving our people - _my_ people - and I will not stand back from it. I should alert the guard and have them at you, right here and now."

"I would like to see them try," Kael'thas replied calmly.  
The moonlight shimmered upon his form, as if breaking at impact with his outline.  
"May I at least have your attention for the request I would make of you before you do anything rash, old friend?"

It stung sharp to have him call him that. It was true - they had once been close. So much had happened and nothing had ever separated them, nothing until the very last moment when the veil over Kael'thas's deception had been lifted and Rommath had finally seen clearly through. Abandoning the prince had been like leaving behind his own family, his own blood. He'd loved this man immensely once, not all too long ago, and he would have died for him without a question. Together, they'd seen the collapse of all that they'd loved. Together, they'd seen the dawn of something else. Now they stood here, separate, and Rommath could feel the part where they'd been cut off still hemorrhaging uncontrollably. He didn't want to tear more pieces off of it. He didn't want to say one more thing to this _old friend_ of his, or hear him utter a word in return.

"To hell with you," he muttered, looking away, afraid he would break on the spot if he'd keep his eyes upon the elf any longer.  
He could hear the smile on Kael's breath and snarled at him;  
"Speak, then. Out with it. I tire of waiting."

The prince nodded.  
"I would have you send word to my remaining Dawnblades in my name. Discreetly, of course; few would answer should the summons come under the command of my regent lord or any of his council. I know you have ways of getting back to them. The Sunblades, however many remain, will be much harder to reach. Reach them anyway."

"And what would I tell your wayward followers, Prince Kael'thas? What could I possibly say to them that would not betray my allegiance or my conscience? Pray tell me, my lord."

"Tell them to merge again with the rest of the Sunfuries."

"The Sunfuries, my lord, are under Lor'themar's control now. Surely you are most painfully aware of this."

Kael'thas nodded again.  
"Naturally. The Dawnblades know this just as well. I will have them cleared of any price on their lives, any crimes in their names. They are our people, Rommath; your people, not only mine. There is no difference between their blood and yours or mine."

Rommath let out a cool laugh, although his heart was anything but cold; it was still beating quite furiously and aching with every thundering pulse.  
"And how, pray tell, will the uncrowned prince clear any bounty set for his condemned followers, as he is himself, indeed, the most wanted of them all? I could be put to death for simply speaking with you. What are you to do to redeem them, Kael'thas?"

Kael'thas licked his lips, and Rommath couldn't avoid remembering how he'd often done that whenever he'd been intently focused on a task at hand - most often he'd seen the prince aim this very look at a book or a scroll in front of him, but now the look, that examining gaze, was aimed at him instead. The prince's eyes burned fiercely, illuminating the sharp features of his thinned cheeks and the rise of his ivory brows.

"I will speak with my regent, of course. As a prince should do."

Rommath wanted to welcome this, wanted to hear hope in it and a promise, but instead his hair stood on end and he stepped closer to Kael'thas, not to gap the distance between them as much as he did so to appear taller, unhesitant, and bold. There he could see him better, that... shadow that he'd become as if something had drained all life from him and reanimated what had been left behind; it hardly even looked like the prince he'd once known now that he stood this close. The gold and deep crimson of his robes only served to highlight the lifelessness of his own skin, and the cheekbones that reflected the ferocious, violent green of his eyes had no other colour to them. Rommath thought of turning away, of walking away, even alerting the guard as he'd threatened to do, but if there was anything left in Kael'thas of whom he'd once been that would have meant nothing but a senseless slaughter of men and women who stood no chance in that fight. But if the alternative was diplomacy - what good would words do them now? Could he _trust_ this shell of his former friend even if a compromise or a conclusion could be reached between them? He wanted to. Desperately, he _wanted_ to, and yet...

"What would you have of Lor'themar?" he asked then, perhaps too late by now, his delay betraying his doubts. "What words would you choose to convince him that your will is now suddenly once more the best of the realm that you left him, as if it wasn’t you who most recently threatened the very survival of our people?"

Kael'thas didn't seem to mind the delayed response. His fingertips trailed the luxurious cloth of his robes, nails catching onto the seams of the ornate decorations. Rommath could see the tremors and unsteadiness in him as he did so, typical to one who'd abandoned himself to his arcane hunger - it reminded him of Galell, the last he'd ever seen the man. Uncontrolled. Unpredictable. With that memory came the cold again, spreading into his extremities and leaving him feeling rather hopeless.

"Rommath," Kael'thas spoke his name with gentleness that only unnerved the man further, "I am a servant of my people. Do you not know me? Have you forgotten? It serves none to have my most loyal put to the sword for the crime of remaining true. If you are to lay blame of the course I chose on someone then by all means - lay it on me. These elves you seem to have all but abandoned in your grand vision of the _good_ of the realm did no wrong in following their prince. I asked this of them. Spare them; my shortcomings should not be the end of those whose only wrong was standing steadfast in their faith in me, their leader and the sole remaining heir to the throne."

"Your - shortcomings, my lord? Is that what we call them now? I remember my own faith yet, Kael'thas. I do not for one moment believe that you have abandoned yours."

Kael'thas let out a short laugh. It sounded cold, even against the warmth of the night within the sanctuary the Grand Library offered.  
"I wasn’t raised to be blind to my own failures, Rommath. I've lost this fight. The last thing I wish is the death of even those few that lived despite my weakness."

"Yes, they lived - many because they abandoned you at the last moment and fled to spare their own hides. I would wager that your most loyal already lie dead on Quel'Danas, perhaps joined by the ghost of your father there, and all those who stood and fell with him in a very different time yet... not so long ago. I've known you for a long time, my prince. Never once did I think you merciless. Forgiving, however...? I cannot remember this ever being your most defining trait."

Rommath met the other elf's gaze the best he could. He was pushing his luck now, and if he was tempting death by doing so then so be it - he'd put up a fight before going down, make sure the whole of Silvermoon knew there was a threat within its walls once more. If he saw Kael'thas tense, however, then it was only a fleeting gesture of his hand nipping at the fabric of his clothes like a bird of prey tearing at the flesh of the spoils of its hunt and nothing more. Once it was gone, there was no sign of irritation or indeed of anything else in the profile that the denounced prince was showing him. His words, however, were shorter now when he spoke.

"Would you have faith in me, Rommath? This one last time. Are you not one of those who abandoned my side at last notice? Did I not count on you more than anyone? Do you think it did not hurt when the most loyal of my advisors and my most trusted friend all but discarded me and all that we’d fought for together? Yet here you stand, free to be as bold with your words with me as you desire. You may think as you please of me and even picture yourself as my enemy now, but for all that we've been through together - would it kill you to trust in me one more time?"

"I do not worry for myself, Kael."  
The name slipped so naturally... Rommath had to recompose himself in the midst of speaking.  
"Surely, let it kill me! Let my good faith and my loyalty be my undoing. No; I do not care about what happens to me - I worry for Lor'themar. If I am wrong to give you another chance then my death is hardly the toughest blow one could deal to our kingdom and our people, but should I let you past me and then see that I was mistaken - again - then there is nothing I can do to take back what I've done. Give me your word, _old friend;_ give me your word that _all_ you want is words, and I will not stand in your way. You ask for my blind faith, my going against all that I've learned, painfully so - you may have it! But if you let me down, Kael, I will not rest before you've paid for the pain you've put me through."

Against his best effort Rommath could not suppress the startle that shook him as Kael'thas lifted his hand and reached for him. Yet no pain came; no burn of a flame, no lapse of gravity, no loss of air or any other sign of the endless ways Rommath had seen him take apart his enemies. Instead, the prince laid the cold backs of his fingers over his cheek and ran his touch down to Rommath's jaw, lifting his head up so that his face was cast in the moonlight peeking past the spaulders weighting down Kael's shoulders. The man examined him in silence for a moment and Rommath could feel his own heart racing like that of a fearful rabbit and he cursed himself for it, but a certain weakness had spread into him at the touch that seemed to take him back several years to a different time and place where a careful brush of fingers had not been unseen between them. It had been long since he'd so much as felt at ease to address the prince, but once he hadn't been beyond a tug on his sleeve, a nudge of his shoulder - they'd been close then, and the loss of that friendship _ached_ within him still. In a short time he was released, and he lowered his head back down slowly, wondering if the agony he felt was visible in his eyes.

"I would hope for nothing more than that any pain I've caused you should be in the past now," Kael'thas spoke quietly. He was leaving; Rommath could tell it in the language his body spoke as his weight shifted, even though he seemed most unwilling to move.

Neither of them spoke for another passing moment, but to stop the silence from dragging on, it was Kael who took the burden again.  
"Where might I find my regent, Rommath?"

"The last I saw him not too long ago, he was in the High Spire and wanted a moment to himself."

"Then I fear that I must intrude on him. Thank you, Rommath - for your faith," Kael'thas said, taking one last look of Rommath before passing him.

The Grand Magister turned to watch him leave, a void within him that he couldn't quite reason with.


	6. Rock Bottom

* * *

  
The need was growing unbearable. It seemed to have infested all of Kael's nerves, each ligament of his body, leaving behind nothing but exhaustion and burning in its wake. He stopped in the silence of the spiral stairway, his back resting against the cold stone of the walls surrounding him. The keep felt as if it was swallowing him whole, that this was its throat and whatever was outside there was now somewhere far out of reach. The rise was steep and the steps tall but it wasn't the climb that was tiring him, it was that... that _knowledge_ of all the arcane power surrounding him, so close he could almost touch it, yet in his own body he felt nothing but the lack of it, this insufferable weakness that caused his limbs to shake uncontrollably. He gripped at the side of his overcoat, steadying himself, but there were things he couldn't simply hold together by force. His mind was... betraying him, his thoughts jumbled and separate, barely able to connect from one to the other. All he could reliably fall back to was the thought of magic, and most urgently, the presence of that ever-pulsating heart of the building; he could perhaps stand to ignore the magic floating in the air from other sources, from all the lights and the fires and even the leylines that had set the foundations of the city thousands of years ago, but not that, not the fel-infused crystal so damningly close, he could almost... almost hear it calling, not in any language he knew but he was attuned enough to the sound to understand it in his heart. He wanted to give up, fall into dust scattered over the shimmering white of the climb, become nothing at the precipice of madness, but - there was only one thing remaining. Then, to hell with it. Unable to quite finish that thought, to give words to the abandonment that had become a craving beyond what he could comprehend, Kael'thas pulled himself back into motion.

After Rommath, facing Lor'themar Theron should be easier; he'd calculated it so, for his own sake more than that of his... opponent. Lor'themar should by any and all means be harder to convince to see things from his side, after all, Kael'thas _had_ placed the burden of the realm on him and if he knew the former Farstrider at all, it was a burden he did not take lightly. Yet facing him was altogether different than facing Rommath. Their relationship had always been political in nature, Lor'themar had been a soldier and a commander before anything else to Kael'thas, whereas Rommath had been a friend - like Astalor. The latter's absence in Silvermoon served both a minor relief to Kael'thas and yet also a disappointment. What was it that had him craving the company he'd kept before? The smell of death that clung to him, perhaps, permeating his every conscious moment? Maybe it was the constant hungering pain he carried with him, hoping for distraction or _comfort_ from those he'd sought it from before. What a foreign thought that was now, to rely on another; he'd never been good at exposing his inner thoughts yet the very idea of closeness felt separate from him now, as if he'd shed his elven nature and become a solitary _other_ instead, existing only for his purpose. A miserable existence indeed. 

Or perhaps... perhaps it was simply _her_ , he thought even as he entered the top level of the High Spire: Jaina Proudmoore, ever his soft spot. Maybe it was just her company, her usual stubborn yet so righteous nature, reminding him of simpler times. It bothered him. Pestered him. Made him wish he could drown these surfacing feelings into a surge of blissful, intoxicating arcane energy that would wipe his mind clear of disruptions. It was such a convenient solution, that high which made him feel like the things he'd lost and the people who'd turned their backs to him didn't matter anymore, or at least like the grief of it all was somehow unable to touch him, as if he was hiding his body behind the toughest of armours. He wore his magister's attire now, yet its enchanted weave could do nothing to deflect the pain of seeing old acquaintances, people he'd once counted on. Even Rommath - there had been a moment upon gazing at the man that Kael'thas had wanted nothing more than to burn him in an all-consuming fire, leaving behind nothing even for the rats. He spoke of pain Kael had caused him, well, he did not know the pain _he'd_ felt at Rommath's departure and all that had followed since. He'd sent him away because he'd trusted him. This was the payback for his trust, his affection; Rommath now stood against him as if _he_ was the enemy. As if all that they’d been through together did not matter...

There was a simple gold-rimmed cup set on a low table looking out towards the city. It steamed still, a silver spoon dripping sticky honey onto the surface beneath beside it. And next to it sat a man whose armour could have reflected the size of his burden - the gold heavy over his chest, and constricting, yet mere decorations in comparison to what Kael'thas had worn to show status. Like a shadow he moved forwards, but he knew Lor'themar knew he was present, or at least... that someone was. The regent would hardly expect _him_ in specific: anyone else was a safer bet. Still, Kael'thas took another step closer, then another, the hems of his overcoat ever so gently caressing the floor beneath. The air was fresh here. No wonder Themar had sought this place out, no wonder he'd chosen it for his cup of tea: when Kael'thas lifted his eyes from the other elf's shape, he could indeed see Eversong from here. The distance must have felt suffocating to the man he'd appointed into this prison.

"The walls grow taller each day, do they not, lord Theron?" he spoke, forcing the strain of his physical state out of his voice.

With a simple swipe he snatched the regent's bow from where it had leaned against his seat - Themar had had a lapful of freshly fletched arrows on him which now scattered onto the floor, one still firmly in his hand as he all but danced into a readied stance, facing Kael'thas with wild surprise in his eyes. It settled soon enough and so did his stance; he abandoned his sharp readiness in favour of a tense standing posture instead, realising perhaps that his single arrow would do very little against Kael's armour and powers. Calmly, Kael'thas allowed his bow to drift back to the ground; it barely made a sound as its tip rested against the floor once more, its body leaning back against the regent's seat as if it had never left at all. Lor'themar gave it a quickly glance but returned his eyes upon Kael'thas in an instant. He was not letting the prince out of his sight. 

Good.

"I always felt like a prisoner here," Kael continued, his voice quieter now as he moved around the table with the tea still steaming upon it. "That's why I spent so little time home, as little as I could. Elsewhere, I could pretend I was still free. Do you feel that, too? Even if you can never truly leave and be simply yourself and nothing more, the mere illusion is sometimes all we need to survive the burden of reign. I know you've thought of it."

"When I heard your body was never recovered, I feared it might come to this. Where are your soldiers, Kael, or are you here on your own?"

Kael'thas looked around them lazily, as if searching for his hidden guardians. The night sky was at its darkest, and the hum of energy in the city was all that remained. He felt so comfortable in that darkness now - he'd spent so many years in it. "Sunstrider" seemed like an irony in contrast; it meant one who walked in the light, and Kael'thas had all but rejected it.

"I am here to _speak_ of my soldiers, but I brought none with me. It is far easier to come home alone than it would be should I bring a King's Guard with me, don't you think? Yours might get territorial."

Lor'themar's mouth twitched.  
"Speak?" he repeated, "Well, I suppose it could be worse. I can speak with you - it seems all I do every day now."  
As if to spite him, he sat back down in his seat - slowly, certainly, but nonetheless abandoning his defensive posture. He knew he was underpowered. He knew there was no use acting as if he could defend himself. He could probably shoot an arrow or two or even three at Kael'thas before it would be too late, but... what good would it do in the end?

"Isn't it exhausting?" Kael'thas asked him, and he too moved away from his defenses.  
Instead of lingering towards the only exit from the room he walked to the railing separating him from a long fall to the Court of the Sun and rested his eyes on the vast fountain below. His hands were all but unusable from the cursed unsteadiness that spread into them from his core like a sickness. He wound his fingers around the metal to stop himself from showing that weakness, and yet he was all but certain that it wouldn't escape Themar's keen eyes. It hadn't escaped Rommath's, either, even if the Grand Magister had been too polite - or too afraid - to mention it.

Just like Rommath, Lor’themar drew no attention to it. Instead he let out a laugh.  
"It is the most tiring thing in the world!” he agreed, ”Truly the one which will end me if you will not, and if you do then maybe I will thank you with my last breath, if only for releasing me from further _politics_ and _talking._ Yes, the walls are high, and the forests distant, and it has been so long since I spent time in the sun that my skin has gone pale as the bark of the trees lining our streets. If I didn't know better, I'd bet that this is why you left me in charge and ran off to another world - to escape the endless tedium of _talking_."

Kael's mouth curved into a crooked smile.  
"I will not lie, it did make it on my list of reasons I should leave," he said. "I'm afraid it did nothing to stop the inevitable; the curse is in my blood and I have passed on none of my burden but all of that curse onto you now."

He turned around, leaning his back to the railing now as if to relax but in truth, he was simply resting his legs that he feared would give in if he didn't lift his weight off them.  
"The city seems well," he pointed out then, hoping his words would keep Themar's attention from the fact. "It seems I trusted the right people."

"You once had a better mind for it," Themar noted dryly, "We've all done what we can for the good of Quel'Thalas. The rebuilding is going well. Our people are fed and sheltered once more. And now the Sunwell lights our nights once again and our future seems bright tonight. What is it you want, Kael'thas? The crown, finally, now that its weight has grown lighter?"

The prince shook his head, a look of displeasure flashing across his features. Themar's brow lifted even as he picked up his tea, bringing the golden brim of the cup to his lips as he watched the other.

"Then what? You wanted to speak of your _soldiers._ "

"The Dawnblade, yes. I want you to cease the bounty hunt. I know that our forces are only a small part of the pack tracking my army but it is nonetheless the part that keeps them from safely entering their own homes and reuniting with their families. Release them and welcome them back, they've fought a long war of which few here know the true extent."

Themar took another sip of his tea, his brow still lifted and his eyes still sharp, and said nothing.

"You welcomed back the Sunfury," Kael'thas pointed out.

Themar nodded, finally placing down his cup.  
"We shared the same distaste for your actions, it seemed. Their numbers were crucial to our defensive and cleansing efforts in the Ghostlands. The same cannot be said for the Dawnblade. I do not know what to do with elves whose loyalty can be bought or who are otherwise so indifferent to our future that they would align themselves with the Burning Legion. What do you say?"

For some time, Kael'thas said nothing at all. Not for the lack of words, but rather because of his inability to catch onto them for long enough to speak. Sighing, Lor'themar stood up again. He walked to the railing and settled beside Kael'thas, seemingly unafraid if not for the careful way he walked, alert and at the ready for anything. His hand slipped under the front of his armour and he leaned down, digging at something, and when Kael looked down at him with a questioning expression, he let out a small chuckle and straightened up again. In his hand, he held a crystal; he offered it towards Kael'thas who suppressed the urge to snatch it from him like a starved animal.

"I don't need them, not like most others do," Themar explained although no question had been spoken between them, "Even before the Sunwell was ignited again, I simply... did not have the need. And yet I'm drowning in them. Perhaps it'll make you feel better?"

The prince's mind resisted the words, resisted processing them and understanding them. All he could see and feel and think of was the energy bound into the gem's form, bright and tempting. It took Lor'themar's effort to push it in his hand, however; it was as if its sight had petrified him. His fingers wrapped around the stone's form stiffly and he closed his eyes as its energies flowed into him, barely soothing the craving within but still, at least, giving him back his ability to think. A relief like cool water spread back into his thoughts despite the by now all too familiar feeling of discord that followed the magic itself, and when he looked up, Kael'thas caught Lor'themar still there, gazing past them at the city below.

"I cannot explain it," the regent spoke thoughtfully, "Despite the Sunwell's presence, our people are still falling victim to their hunger. It has only been one day but I fear that the Sunwell might have made things _worse_ in that regard, not better, for those who were already struggling. The mages were hit the hardest, then the warlocks and the priests... we've lost so many since the War. To what...? Sometimes I think - despite all its given us, the price we've had to pay for our powers..."

Themar's gaze returned to Kael, who'd regained his posture but couldn't quite meet the other's eyes. Instead he watched the dim interior of the room they were standing in, shaded by the canopy of crimson above them.

"And what do you do with those who are amongst our weakest?" he asked then, his voice rougher than before as if unused, and he wanted to clear his throat but couldn't shake the thought that it felt like only another revealed sign of weakness, so he kept this grovel instead. "I fed them, I sheltered them. This city has cast them out of its bounds and chased them into a miserable existence outside our walls like animals."

"You fed them, yes," Lor'themar replied, "Did it do them any good, Kael'thas? Or simply offered them a slow descend into an even more painful madness that would ultimately - inevitably - result in their deaths?"

Kael'thas could feel his eyes upon him.

"What happened to you, Kael?" Lor'themar asked then.

Kael'thas let out a sharp huff.  
"You know what happened to me. If I may return to what we were speaking of before - despite their reasons or motivations, my Dawnblades have proved beyond any measure of doubt that they will follow their cause to their deaths."  
His thoughts were still jumbled, catching to every little hum and vibration of magic around him. Even Lor'themar couldn't fully hold his attention.  
"They stood by me until the very end. They watched our future burn before them. They have done so at least as many times as any of our people, and to keep them on the run is an injustice in the face of their hard-suffering loyalty."

"Loyalty... To what or whom? Kil'jaeden?"

"Their kingdom," Kael'thas replied coldly, "Kil'jaeden promised them nothing, all they had was my word and their unfaltering faith in it."

"So what would happen should I hold you responsible for your betrayal now, Kael'thas? Would they simply stand aside because you asked me to embrace them and welcome them back into our homes, or would they choose their twisted vision over justice for your sake? How can I trust a weapon held by one who has made himself my enemy against the innocence of the people I have sworn to protect?"

Their eyes finally met again.

"Am I truly your enemy now, Themar? After all these years."

"These years have changed you, Kael'thas Sunstrider. And not for the better. Before you left our land you made me responsible for it and for the people you and I both loved so dearly, and while you have been gone I have learned hard lessons in keeping them safe. It has come to be so that I would be hard-pressed to let you take control here again, as even you have shown yourself a dire threat to our continued prosperity, our healing and our very survival. What was it you said before? Our people don't need a king, and our focus should be to heal from the injustices inflicted upon us. Those were wise words, spoken by a young and inexperienced prince at the deathbed of his father, but that very wisdom has led us to this day, as have the choices made in your absence. I took your words to heart, as did our people whom your courage in the face of our darkest day brought back from the brink of despair. Perhaps it is because of this first and foremost that I will not let your actions since cast a shadow over what we have rebuilt and achieved on our own. I did not choose you as my enemy, Kael, but you made yourself that very thing in the eyes of our people the day you sold your soul to the Burning Legion. And so, I cannot take your word for order. I cannot bow to your vision. I must hold true to the task you gave me when we still shared the same, uncompromised loyalty - the loyalty to the sin'dorei, not to our greed or our thirst for power."

The prince listened in silence, irritation growing and then subduing and then growing again within him. There was yet a part of him that knew that before he would have only found Lor'themar's words wise and nothing more, but now the more he spoke, the more insulted and undignified he felt. Before when, he wasn't quite sure anymore. It was as if the recognition was an echo from a different lifetime.

"No," he said then, bitterly, "Our people do not need a king nor shall they have one. Indeed, I am not here to take the throne you seem to have grown rather fond of, Lor'themar. All I ask for is your forgiveness of those you pledged to serve. Or will you punish them for my actions?"

"Not yours," Lor'themar answered quietly, "Theirs. Do not act as if blame cannot be laid upon their conscience as well. Even upon discovering your true colours they hailed you as their prince and turned their backs on those who needed protection, becoming the very thing that put all we'd rebuilt in peril - and more! Do you think Kil'jaeden would have spared our kingdom in his destruction of all of Azeroth? It is not only this city that would have been reduced to ashes in the wake of your masterplan, Kael'thas. We are speaking of the entire world. What blinded you so that you could even for a moment entertain the thought of letting this happen, I do not know, but I know that you not only turned a blind eye to it... you advocated for it. You sacrificed for it. You _bled_ to ensure that our world and our lives would be wiped from this universe. What did he promise you in return for your heart, for your conscience? I cannot think of anything worth the price we would have paid for your reward, and I doubt even that you would have ever had it, should the will of the demon have come to pass. You may come to me now in disguise and act humble and as if you are still capable of love or devotion, Kael'thas, but do not think me a fool. I do not trust a word that comes out of your mouth for I fear that it was sold and your tongue still serves the ends of your master, not that of the kingdom you cast aside and abandoned to ruin."

Lor'themar parted from the balcony's edge and walked back to his seat. He sighed heavily as he picked up an arrow from the floor, then another, and stayed crouched examining them in his hand with his remaining eye.

"I cannot with good conscience allow your army to return to Quel'Thalas, Kael. Yet I have mercy in me and I will order the cessation of the immediate hunt for them. Let them prove who they serve, and see for themselves the future they wish to build. Let them find their own way. If you wish to go with them, I cannot stop you; I doubt there is an arrow in my quiver that could hold you from whatever you may decide to do next. I, however, cannot look upon you as anything but a traitor to our people and I will not see you return into this city or within the borders of these lands, and know that you have no place with our allies or in their lands either, and neither do your people. I do not command the Horde and I cannot dictate whom others may seek to bring to justice, and I shall make no mention of the Alliance or the forces beyond our world that I am even less qualified to speak for. In any case I cannot, nor would I, vouch for you or those who served you to anybody else, and my word on this is final."

He pulled himself up and let the arrows rest in his fisted hand at his side, his eyes severe as they stopped upon Kael'thas's form.

"Have I made myself clear?" he asked then.

Defeat burned bitterly within Kael'thas, but there was no use in unleashing the anger it brought with it. As powerful as he might once have been his magic was now shriveled and faint, his body beaten and taken to its limit, and he was alone with no allies by his side; there was very little he could do here. In spite of the shame it brought him to do so he nodded, then bowed ever so slightly before his regent in a mocking manner.

"You have made yourself very clear indeed," he stated dryly, "May I make one request of you before I leave your council and the lands you've claimed for yourself, Regent Lord?"

Lor'themar tilted his head, waiting.

"Have Rommath take charge of the Dawnblade matter and the relocation of those who remain loyal to me and have thus been deemed unworthy of their own lands. I should hope at least one of my oldest friends can spare some pity in his heart for his former allies. I trust you will give them a fair chance to leave, as you have never been anything less than a man of your word, Lor'themar."

The regent's mouth thinned.  
"I will discuss the matter with him and he will make his own decision. Do not let yourself think you still own him, Kael'thas; Rommath has chosen his side."

"I am well aware that he has," Kael'thas replied, his voice icy. "And now, I would take my leave. Thank you for allowing me a moment of your no doubt very busy schedule. Hopefully your tea has not ran entirely cold yet."

"I'm sure it has, Kael."  
Lor'themar took his seat again, turning his back to Kael as he approached the doorway out.  
"Farewell, then."

*

Kael'thas could feel himself shimmering back into view. It hardly mattered - the night was dark, and Murder Row was lit dimly at the brightest hour. The cloth strapped over the alley moved in the wind, the shades stretching across the night sky above, casting their colourful shadows to mix with those below on the street. This was no place for royalty, but, and the thought made a grimace spread over the prince's face - he wasn't one anymore, was he? Disgraced and exiled by those he'd put in power himself. This was not the outcome he'd thought of when he'd left Quel'Thalas all those years ago.

All those years... the phrase had caught onto him, rubbed off from others. Years hardly mattered. He'd lived long enough for this past era in his life to be nothing if not fleeting, and while he could've never called it _insignificant_ , the span of time itself was only a moment, a knot of threads in the grand tapestry that was everything else. Marred, blackened, a stain upon a fine picture, and yet the longer he gazed upon it in his mind, the more imperfections he caught. Anger swelled within him, but a part of him felt all but exhausted with it, exhausted by its never lifting presence and the manner it seemed to stem from outside of him. He'd always been a clash of opposites: patience was perhaps his most treasured trait, and yet setbacks would as if entirely wipe any sign of it from him. Anger came so easily to him - had always come - but recently... recently it had grown into its own, becoming like a shadow flickering at his side at all times, ready to latch its long talons onto him to tear its way in.

Kael lifted his own hand in front of him, stopping. Embers glowed faintly over the pale skin, and his nails drew dark contrast to it when he bent his fingers - like a prison cell for power. And that was just... an exact replica of how he felt. Trapped in the impossibility of his circumstances, yet that, he still felt, was a prison he could escape. The prison of his body, however, this weakened ruin, he couldn't. It had needs that wound into the texture of his mind seamlessly, like vines that were slowly becoming part of the once so firm and steadfast tree, sucking it dry of life. His hand fell to his side and he looked around himself. There was nothing here, but the Royal Exchange was merely across the tavern; beyond this accursed place, the city was still buzzing with energy. A man, drunken, stirred on the ground when Kael'thas passed him. Their eyes met, and the man opened his mouth, then squinted, shook his head, and let himself back down on the paved street. Singing echoed from down in the tavern as Kael forced himself back into invisibility - as drunken as he expected everyone inside to be if their howling was anything to go by, most of them would likely prove quite sharp enough yet to recognise him, and being recognised in this state, his magic barely enough to _cover_ him as he skulked through his own damned city like a thief in the night, was the last thing he needed. He wasn't wrong: the patrons of the tavern, as few as they were at this hour, were still standing on tables and laughing, their laughter sounding as if it stemmed from a place only accessible now with the aid of strong spirits and a spike of... Kael could see them everywhere here, the crystals, in the hands of patrons, some dimming and some still glowing bright, and his mana sparked within him painfully as he tore his gaze from them, merely crossing the building and nearly running into a woman with a stained tabard of the Blood Knight order. She was as drunk as any of them, however, and collapsed against the wall as Kael passed her, narrowly escaping being pushed into it by an unseen force.

They'd all paid a price for surviving, Kael'thas thought as he surfaced in the fresh night of the Royal Exchange. His own price was this now never-shifting pain that tortured him like being eaten alive inside by some kind of an infestation of maggots, each of them armed with a sharp set of teeth gnawing slowly but surely into his flesh. The shaking of his hands was now impossible to cover and his breath was shallow and hard to control. It had never been this bad before. He'd never felt anything _like_ this, although he could still well remember the manner the dawning signs of this emptiness within had startled him those very first nights after he'd seen the Sunwell destroyed. Instinctively, he threw a gaze towards where the beacon of light was even now shining, somewhere beyond the buildings yet alive, as if mocking him, as if undoing all the pain he'd been through because of it. It wasn't helping. It was doing _nothing_ to help him, nothing at all, and if he'd seen anything from the way those elves in the tavern were still clutching the gems, how they were filling themselves with the demonic power trapped within, that cursed thing on Quel’Danas was doing nothing to help anyone at all. It intensified the need in him, like a mere reminder of what had been before, of this insufferable _longing_ for the feeling of neutralcy, of waking up at sunrise and not feeling the brush of mortality against the body that had rejected it for hundreds of years or had to concern itself with its own decay. He could almost not remember it at all now, so bad was the pain. Instead, he felt his injuries... like open gashes in his already aching flesh. 

His mind was foggy, his gait uneven from dizziness. He could see a crystal hovering in a room there, used by casters in the daytime no doubt, and it was like the arrow of a compass calling to him, his feet turning to take him to it. Its texture was smooth and otherworldly to touch - Kael rested his forehead against it, his palms flat against its shape, the last shreds of will within him reminding him that should he simply let go now and drain it all, all the power and relief suspended within the gem, he would change, change so much that he'd lose whatever remained of who he'd once been. It seemed like a blissful oblivion... to no longer care, to simply give up here once and for all and drown in the flame of pleasure that would consume him, should he only let himself go. So easy... to forever give up on this burden of management, of the endless grind of a need that would never be fully sated. His form was coming back into vision. He didn't care. He breathed in the essence of the crystal, nails drawing invisible lines upon its shape. It cracked underneath his magic, shattering; smaller crystals rained down upon the ground like broken glass. His knees bent as if following their own will, and in a twistedly loving fashion he swept up the shards from the ground. The raw edges cut his palm - it sent a shudded of pleasure through him, the very shape of the gem so strongly imbued with energy that now directly touched his blood. His fingers bent around the shards and he gripped them a little too hard, more cuts breaking into his skin, more magic flowing in in exchange... he closed his eyes, and his fingers picked up a shard on purpose, bringing it to the side of his arm. His mind was silent. He didn't miss the thoughts as he broke the skin and kept pushing, pushing until the shard was _in_ him. It felt so good that the pain was nothing. Once free, his other hand pressed against the large gem again. He could hear it humming, calling, as he broke more pieces out of it. They rained on him. His blood smeared the shape of crystal and trickled down his arm as he gathered the rest, and then, so dizzy he could barely comprehend what he was looking at, he let his subconscious take him somewhere else. Away from this place. Somewhere... he could be in silence.

At peace.

*

The sound of footsteps approaching the Grand Library caused a nauseating tightness in the bottom of Rommath's belly. Stiffly he turned towards the entrance, beyond which the magical fires illuminated the corridor, but... it was Lor'themar. At first he was overcome with relief, pure and soothing - then, although the regent lord's stern expression made sense under the present circumstances, he couldn't quite help but wonder if he was in trouble. It hardly mattered; he'd done nothing to break Themar's trust, or that of the sin'dorei.

They met under the dark of the Library, and at first it seemed that whatever Lor'themar had come for, he now suddenly didn't have the words. Instead, as Rommath struggled to find his own, the regent did one thing he'd never done and which Rommath couldn't have expected in his dreams: he laid his hand on Rommath's shoulder and, when words still evaded him, simply grasped harder and pulled him into an embrace. 

They'd never been close - more often than not they'd barely been uneasy allies in charge of contrasting perspectives - but now Rommath relaxed into the gesture even if it had stunned him into inaction, and for a moment he rested his forehead against Themar's armour, breathing slowly to steady himself. When the embrace broke he felt a little more together, a little more collected if not entirely ready to process the gesture; he met Themar's gaze and found it unreadable, but emotion reflected from him like the glow of fire from within.

"He spoke with you too, did he not?" Lor'themar asked him finally, and Rommath nodded.

"Of course."  
He wondered if his loyalty would be tested now; if he'd be questioned, held aside from his duties, his position of responsibility. Lor'themar sighed, his gaze moving from Rommath to the hall around them - the books, thousands upon thousands of them stacked from floor to the ceiling, endless towers of tomes only paralleled by what had been found in Dalaran once; the royal library had always been a magister's paradise, and if there were those who claimed its resources and knowledge were limited in comparison to what could be sought elsewhere, or that they were _biased_ towards certain aspects of history, well, no one of importance took them very seriously. Rommath had always loved the library, ever since he'd been a youth who'd barely began his journey in magic. He still remembered the wonder of being brought here for the first time and told he could read everything... everything his heart desired. Sometimes he'd even caught a glimpse of Anasterian amongst the mountainous bookcases, the old king formidable and somehow shining into the shadows of the hall no matter what his business there, but to a young elf, those moments had been as magical as the tomes in the archives.

When Themar didn't speak for a long time, Rommath felt it best if he'd confess.  
"He wanted me to lead him to you," he told the regent lord truthfully, "At first I insisted I would not let him past me, but he was adamant he wished only to talk. Perhaps I was weak; I wanted to believe him."

"No harm done, Rommath. Indeed I may have gained some insight I previously lacked. I am sure you calculated the risk carefully - I do not hold your decision against you," Themar said, dismissing his words with a gesture. "I simply do not feel at ease yet. There is much I must think and yet I cannot achieve the state of mind - I feel disturbed. Could you do me a favour? I'm afraid I could only trust a magister to properly assist me with it."

"Of course. I don’t seem to be in a great hurry."

Themar tilted his head, then sighed.

"You may take Halduron and his rangers with you if you wish, but if you'd rather go alone, I want you to know that above everything I need you back alive and well. Do you understand?"

"Of course."

Lor'themar nodded.  
"Find him."

Rommath blinked.  
"Excuse me?" he said, his voice one of unmasked surprise.

"Find him, Rommath. I need to know. It is possible to track him, is it not? Even if you can’t simply follow his magic, surely he'll resurface somewhere. He can't hide. Above all, I merely need to know he leaves these lands. I don't care where he goes then, not yet, it's a concern for later, but I need him far away from Quel'Danas and the Sunwell and I need him away from this city and all the minds he might yet corrupt with his lies and the powers granted to him by his _master_. I was afraid it would come to this, Rommath; from the very moment I learned he'd risen from the dead again like he said his phoenix always would, no matter what. Perhaps he has discovered some dark powers that will guarantee he is not so easily dispatched. Nevertheless, you understand the urgency; we were both there once, fighting the corruption that had marred the waters of the Well by the actions of one prince, and I shall not have this repeated. No matter the cost."

Now severe and hard, Rommath nodded.  
"I understand," he said, once more pulling himself together. "I will find him, and I will take Halduron and his men and women with me; a scouting party will do, no more than that."

"It is done," Lor'themar promised; "Remember - prioritize your own safety above everything else."

Rommath nodded again.  
"On my word, you will have no casualties to count."

A smile graced Themar's features, but there was a shadow to it, almost a bitterness. He sighed.  
"If only I could come with you without risking everything," he spoke quietly, sounding as if far away, "But if I'd fall, who then would watch over our people?"  
His eyes lifted back at Rommath.  
"I will endure the pain of these walls closing me in knowing that at least the throne will not pass back to the Sunstriders. Funny how this still pains me to say."

Rommath couldn't help but agree. This seemed to be one of the few times that he and Lor’themar Theron did not entirely oppose one another in opinion.  
"I will report back to you at dawn," he said, "or at the very least send Halduron back to you then, if we have not found Kael'thas. I would rather you had him by your side, but for tonight, I need his sharp eyes and ears."

"I will send for him. Shorel'aran, Rommath. I'll wait for your word at dawn."


	7. Scarred

* * *

Eversong Woods. They'd never seemed quite so deep and vast before, though Kael'thas couldn't recall when he'd last been so _lost_ in them either - it was a past time for the ranger whelps, the little hunter-trackers and skinners and others whose hands were steady over knives and bows, and he'd been a prince his entire life. Slipping away as a princeling wasn't easy, he'd learned that very young; his father had had eyes in the walls and the wind, and the King's Guard had been a persistent _nuisance_ that Kael could never shed from his trail completely. Still he'd had that same wildness in him once, at least until his mind had calmed from his youth and found the worlds he'd thought unreachable within the pages of his books. Before then he'd spent that time running around in these forests like any young child would have, hiding and chasing the gold-leaved saplings of the tree guards around, catching frogs and dropping squirrels off the trees with his magic. How disappointed he'd always been when he'd inevitably walked into another elf and been recognised as the spawn of the royal bloodline in an instant; all those bows and smiles for the pointy-eared boy disheveled and muddy from trying to escape his heritage and the gilded prison of his realm. And yet, how relieved and content he'd been when he'd returned home and had his bruises tended to, a warm meal served and a bath poured; he'd never been one of the other boys of Silvermoon, always a world away from how the rest of them were growing up, and this rift had kept him quite lonely throughout his younger years. It had bred into him a sense of solitude even amongst his own people, and a shyness he'd never shed but which he'd trained hard to overcome - he'd raised from it a firm, proud voice and carefully chosen words, a posture that separated him from the crowd and a presence that emphasised the space he left around himself in company. So what if he'd never felt he fit the mold he'd been bred for? He'd made the best out of most of his weaknesses in the end - he'd excelled in refining them until they were strengths, not weaknesses - if not for one... that festering sense of difference that others would always feel about him, and which had cursed him with feelings for a human girl instead of an elven noble. It had to be that; some kink in his inner workings, a flaw in his design - nothing more.

All those years he'd struggled to belong... what had it been for? Had it not now been proven beyond doubt that there was no trusting anybody else? It didn’t matter if they were human or elf, it was all the same in the end. He wanted to laugh. His fingertips trailed the white bark of a tree almost glowing against the moonlight and when he looked back, _turned_ back and walked backwards for a moment, he saw he'd left scorched marks on it. Let it be so. Burn the whole place down. Burn it! He'd already made his peace with it before, when Kil'jaeden had spoken his promises in his ear. Where was he now? Silent, silent and defeated. So it went. Kings fell and kingdoms burned and legions scattered into the winds. Kael would have loved to see a demon right there, right then; his veins were burning with magic and he wanted to unleash it on something, a lowly abomination from Kil'jaeden would do very well, if only to present an opportunity for Kael to show how very _done_ he was with bowing down, of being on his knees. His breathing was hard, uneven; a gasp here or a gasp there was all he needed. He didn't live on air anymore, his lungs barely longed for it: all he needed was the rush within him, that heat of fel magic that made the Sunwell's blaze feel like moonlight in comparison to the scorching heat of the sun itself. A mere reflection of true power... he couldn't see very well. It wasn't the darkness, it was... something else, that same cloudiness that kept his mind so blissfully silent against the raging doubts and that bitter grief he'd momentarily allowed to dig its claws into him. So it didn't come as a surprise when the earth gave way and a steep hillside brought him to a slide, the soles of his shoes digging into the dewy grass. 

A biting smell flooded his nostrils. It was like being face down in the ground, smelling the earth itself, but something was wrong about it, and it carried a sickly sweetness about it, a heaviness like malignant energy weighting it down. The hill came to an end, sloping into what should have been more forest the same as before, more gold and verdant green, but as Kael'thas steadied himself, he wasn't shocked to see that it all ended there. He felt as if he'd expected it... like he'd come here for a purpose.

A jagged, ugly scar stretched across the landscape. It was silent as the grave and not one nightly songbird had chosen it for its serenades, no critter crawled amongst the blackened dirt but maggots and roaches, and even those disgusting creatures had seen fit to hide in the darkness. A surge of powerful emotion pushed Kael'thas back into movement - he left behind himself a trail of sparks, little embers glowing against the night's dark. It disgusted him even as he laid his feet upon the defiled ground. It would never heal, the reports had told him. It would never _be_ healed. He shivered as he brought his hand into the dry earth. On the surface it was like ashes, so fine it might have as well just crept into the texture of his skin, but just beneath the first touch it turned tarry and clayish only without any resemblance to the familiar robustness of healthy soil. And even through the haze of the magic rush he could hear it... the voice that told him he should have been there then. Here, right here, standing by his people; what good had his fire done back in Dalaran? Nothing. He'd stayed safe within its walls while Arthas and his unholy pestilence had swept through his lands, destroying all in their wake. Even now... even now there was a seed of that corruption here. It would only take a disturbance... an encouragement... to rise again.

Kael'thas gladly provided it. Let them come: the words pounded in his mind as he cast a jolt of energy rushing through the tainted ground like lightning. Let them come! All of them! Have them taste at his power, let them take a gamble against it. Let them come!

The ground stirred. Everywhere, all around him, long-buried bones broke through the surface, coming back to some mockery of life even as _life_ had all but left them years ago. White sun-bleached bones, brown rot-greasy bones, bones with mold-bitten clothes still clinging to them: all over the scar they came back together, decayed and broken and just as horrifying as they had been that day, and yet there weren't enough of them. There would never be enough; the army that had taken everything from Kael'thas was long gone, and these were the mere breadcrumbs it had left in its wake. He breathed out a hoarse laughter.

"Come!" he hissed at the risen corpses, each lumbering towards him as the sole target for their mindless pursuit to destroy all still living, "Come to me, and taste the fire of vengeance."

The flames lit up the forest like a wildfire rising in its heart. They clung to the dry earth and blackened bones, lashed against the late summer's gentle breeze and the breeze carried the smell of death with it into the Eversong. Two at a time, three at a time the skeletons fell back into the earth they'd risen from, their forms breaking and scattering into nothing like charred wood from the heat of Kael's magic. He had so much power to simply throw away... and he enjoyed every second of it. Every shattered corpse was like a wish coming true from the past - if he'd been here... he could have burned them then. The walls behind him, hidden by the light mist rising from the earth, would still be standing. The Sunwell would not be a mere flickering imitation of itself, and his people would still number in the thousands, children would still crowd the streets and no one, not one of them, would be living a half-life buried under the rubble of the city that had been broken like the bones of these undead crawlers around him now. The flames formed a circle around Kael'thas and he lowered his hands, shaking once more after the brief respite the fel high had provided him, and he watched them die down. Behind the subduing flames, another wall of long-dead bodies was approaching him. His fingers bent around a shard of the crystal he'd broken in the city, brought it to his lips and he kissed it, eyes closing - there was softness in the way his skin touched the blade-like edge of the shard, and something bittersweet about the way it split the skin there. He ran his tongue down the trickle of blood just to taste it, and in his hand the shard bit into him again. He drained it, drained every little drop of energy within it, and then cast it to the dead ground with a trickle of blood following it down. The flames rose again, taller and taller into the night, and suddenly the magister standing alone amongst them found himself craving nothing more than to be swallowed by his own creation, burnt to ashes in this place where his life and all that he'd loved and all that he'd ever known had broken and died and come to nothing.

Just like him in its wake; nothing but ruins, him and his once proud city, his everlasting kingdom. Brought to pieces by one insolent, greedy, aimless excuse for a human prince - for what? Truly, for what? A lich - one more defiled, undead creature amongst the rest. Kel’thuzad was no different in Kael’s eyes, but for him alone, Arthas had destroyed all that had mattered to Kael’thas. It was as if the human prince had done it all for his own entertainment: first he took Jaina, the only woman Kael’thas had ever truly loved, and he’d made her love him and once he'd had his fun he'd discarded her, cast her aside like an old toy. Then he’d come for the rest... like dealing a killing blow after spitting on him first.

Kael’s fire swept away the bones, leaving behind nothing. The ground was quiet again.

_More,_ he thought. More and more until he'd cleansed the way back to the Thalassian Pass or died trying.

*

Concern swelled within Rommath. Not only could he feel these vibrations of energy, but now Halduron was smelling fire. There was a bitterness lingering in the wind, that much Rommath could agree with, but his senses were keen to different things than the Ranger-General's, and the knowledge that these experiences were likely stemming from the same place was making him uncomfortable. At the very least it wasn't coming from within the city. So where, then? They rode their striders out of the Shepherd's Gate and into the gentle night of Eversong. The trees hummed, and some few nightly birds were still chattering there, hidden within the foliage. Nothing at all seemed out of the usual, except... there was something wrong. That was as simply as Rommath could put this strangeness he was feeling, this collective tightness in his stomach. Halduron took the lead, motioning him and his scouts to follow. Even his strider seemed quieter than that which Rommath was riding, its steps softer, barely audible upon the road. 

They followed the path towards Falconwing Square, but the closer they got to the defiled trail the Scourge had once walked, the stronger that bitterness in the wind turned. Now even Rommath could tell it was fire, but there was something off about, and it carried with it the smell of death - of burnt decay. As they turned to follow the black scar's visions, he realised he could see embers in the dirt, glowing bright and angry and red in the disturbed soil. The further they rode the stronger was the stench, and the feel of magic, _surges_ of it, clung heavy to the natural balance of the area. Not one of them, it seemed, wanted to move their striders onto the Dead Scar itself, so they kept riding along its side until finally, atop a smoothly sloping hill, they caught the flames.

Rommath felt Halduron hesitate, his strider anxiously clawing at the hilltop where they'd stopped. The ranger turned his head very slowly, as if uncertain if he should let his eyes off the sight ahead of them, but as he did so Rommath met his gaze in a similar daze, uncertain how to proceed. The Dead Scar was _swarming._ That would have been alarming enough had it happened unprompted, but in the midst of that reawakening of the restless dead stood Kael'thas alone, his gold and crimson shining against the late moonlight gracing even the turned soil he stood on. His magic was... Rommath would have liked to describe it as out of control, but truly, he seemed to have it well under his, only it was so strong, so urgent, that the Grand Magister didn't trust it any more than he trusted the dead it was burning back into the earth. Behind them Halduron's rangers seemed equally disturbed. They were all experienced, chosen for their loyalty and outstanding skills in tracking or landing a precise shot; they'd been through hell and back, certainly, but this sight unnerved even them. Rommath didn't know whether it was the scores of undead reawakened, or the magister's fire that brought them back to a more fitting state of inanimation; encountering the occasional pack of Scourge's remaining corpses wandering the Scar, lost and aimless, was nothing out of the ordinary. This, however, was nothing if not a flood of them, and their numbers served a disturbing memory of the time they'd broken into Silvermoon... into Quel'Danas. Rommath found himself shivering despite the warm night. 

"He's going to burn himself out," he muttered, his gaze returning to the prince and his flames and his heels feeling the strider's body underneath him, anxious to stir it into movement.

"Hold, Rommath," Halduron called out to him in a careful voice, perhaps seeing his eagerness to ride down into the Scar. "Remember who he is."

"I do," Rommath snapped, perhaps more shortly than he'd intended, "I do remember him and that he's an unspeakably powerful magister, and I remember that should we sit atop this hill and watch him let that power consume him, we might as well all embrace the flames now as we'll be just as dead afterwards."

"Do you think it'd be safe to intervene? Remember what Lor'themar ordered; no deaths under any circumstances."

Rommath snarled.  
"Safe," he repeated, "Dealing with Kael'thas hasn't been safe since this Scar was first created. I'm used to danger. Let me go, but keep watch; create a distraction if you must, but do not sacrifice men for me. Should anything happen, bring the word to Lor'themar at dawn, as we planned."

"I'll have our arrows at the ready," Halduron replied, a hint of bitterness in his tone, "Don't do anything stupid, Grand Magister."

"Stupid?" Rommath chuckled, feeling a calm spread to him now that he knew it'd be only a moment longer before he could simply let his strider go, ending this torturous stillness of simply watching. "You be the judge of that."

And so he was riding down the hill. The heat of the flames and the smell of burning rot got heavier the closer he got, but that sense of calm stuck to him, even as he could feel himself prepare for the worst. His mount broke through the dying flames at Kael's back and as he came to a sudden halt the prince turned for him, palms lifted with magic burning in them. It was burning in his eyes, too, and for a moment Rommath feared he'd been much, _much_ too late to intervene, but then there was a stillness in Kael, at the end of which he turned again with a roar and cast the flames into the lines of the undead instead. He was shaking like in bitter cold, his body strained to its extremes and his mind no doubt suffering the same; there was blood on him, Rommath realised. Blood on his chin, on his hands... drying streaks where drops had freely ran down his skin. His palms were torn with cuts. 

Carefully, the Grand Magister slid down from his strider. The beast startled nervously in his wake, and he let go of the reins and pushed its feathery form away. It didn't hesitate - in a split moment it was beyond the flames and back up the hill with its pack, no doubt finding safety a good distance away where the other striders still stood as a firm line. Rommath doubted Kael'thas had even spotted the rangers. He seemed to simply accept that Rommath himself had appeared out of thin air.

"Kael," Rommath spoke, his voice low but loud enough to carry over the raging of the fire and that - that _sound_ that the undead were making across it. "What are you doing?"

"Leaving," Kael'thas snapped; he seemed lucid enough to acknowledge Rommath's words, at least, and respond accordingly. Good.   
"As I was _told_ to do. But I will cleanse this land of this filth that no one has dealt with in my absence... everything, all of it, I've always had to do myself."

"Of course," Rommath replied, feeling a sting of anger although he realised better than he may have liked that whatever Kael was saying now had little do with his real thoughts of how Rommath or anybody else for that matter had fought to reclaim Quel'Thalas, and yet everything to do with the intoxication from the magic he'd drawn into himself. He'd always been careful; one of the most faithfully obedient to the balance of intake and inhibition. Even Rommath had struggled with it at times, yet the clarity of mind had been Kael's priority above everything else... even after Rommath had noticed him changing. Something since had broken, and this man who was already withered and barely hanging on the edge was mere moments away from becoming a lost case, destroyed and taken by his addiction. Perhaps it was already too late - perhaps it had been too late for months, for _years_ now. Struggling to overcome his doubt, Rommath continued: "There will always be more, Kael. There will _always_ be more. They come from the Plaguelands, following the path set out for them. The stream will never end. After what Dar'Khan did... Nevermind that. Kael - you can fight your way all the way across our lands and beyond but you will never stop them."

"Then let me die trying! As I should have! Years ago - with my father."

Ah, Rommath thought; so that was what this was about. He lit up fire in his own palms and cut a line into the approaching horde of the dead, merely to release some frustration... or perhaps to show Kael that he stood with him now as he had then, as he always had. Suddenly it all made perfect sense; the fire, the risen dead, the disturbed Scar, the way Kael had seemingly decided to walk his way out of the realm, and most of all the way he'd drawn in enough power to bring himself to this madness - it was all to suppress the pain of failure. Even in his better days Kael had never taken to failure well, and here... he was surrounded by it. Along with the memories of his people slaughtered in his absence he had to carry the guilt of letting his father down, and now Lor'themar had exiled him. Truly, what did he have to live for? What good was his sanity doing him now? Rommath gazed into the fire, taking a firmer stance against the enemy. For some time they wiped the skeletal assaulters down wave by wave, each surge of magic only serving to disturb the bones scattered in this cursed earth more, waking them to join those already walking, those already _burning._

"It was never your fault, Kael'thas," he said then, fearing the time they had to stop this was running out. "Things are better now. Do you remember what you said when we first came here, after we'd seen first hand what Arthas had done to our people and our lands?"

He couldn't get the prince's attention, but he hoped the man was at least listening.

"You said that we must _heal_ ," he continued; "But have you heeded your own words? Have _you_ healed? Have you ever allowed yourself even a moment to grieve what you lost, what we all lost, or think of a future beyond revenge and nothing else?"

"How could I think of something else when I know that pest still draws breath somewhere, unchallenged? He took everything from me. Him and this plague - has ruined _everything_."

"And still, you told all of us we should cast aside all else and focus on rebuilding... ourselves as much as our kingdom. Do you remember this, Kael? It was always your priority to restore our people, to soothe their pain, but you've ignored your own. I say this as your friend, as your _old friend_ \- stop this madness and let yourself feel it. We all had to do it; now is your turn."

The prince turned to him, a flame grasped in his palm but he wasn't aiming it at him. His eyes... were almost white now, so blindingly the magic within him burned.

"You, like everybody else, turned away from me when I needed you the most! You abandoned me, Rommath; the same as them - the Alliance, my forces, my advisors, and you... you went with them."

"You sent me away yourself, Kael'thas."

"Because I trusted you! More than anyone else, I trusted you to speak for me, to keep our people's faith in our salvation! I thought: who can I count on, come what may? I thought I could trust _you_ , Rommath. You were the last one - a mistake like all the others."

Rommath wanted to slap him. The thought was distantly amusing to him immediately afterwards; as little good as that would do to anyone, at least it would be deeply, deeply satisfying.

"I did speak for you and the salvation you'd promised us... myself not among the least."  
He watched Kael's fireball land in the approaching mass of corpses and burn a hole in it, then returned his gaze to him.  
"And then, strangely... it seemed like you no longer needed my council. Perhaps for a good reason. Look where all my good advice has led you! Or maybe it was the absence of it? I felt abandoned, too. You'd chosen the advice of others over mine and all I could do was accept it, even if I never agreed with the words they were now whispering in your ears. I wanted to believe in you, Kael'thas. I never wanted anything more. But them, these _demons_ that had taken my place -"

"And I could _finally_ focus on the bigger picture. No more interruptions, no more mundane thinking, I was free to plan our new dawn, our future."

Now it was Rommath's turn to cast fire into the approaching enemy - it seemed they'd all but forgotten it and were now fighting each other with words. He wondered what it looked like to Halduron up on his hilltop, or if he was thinking of intervening yet. He hadn't until now, and Rommath hoped he'd give him a little more time.

"Maybe you were free of me and my 'mundane thinking'," he said quietly, his words barely audible above the noise, "but you were also free of your last true friend. I've never wished harm upon you, or wanted anything but the best for you. Can you say this for those who came after me? Can you say that _Kil'jaeden_ was your friend, or that his demons ever cared about you?"

He could sense the air around them shudder with the surge of energy that Kael'thas conjured. There was nothing he could do in defense or reaction, so all he did was watch; the flames grew so bright that they burned at his eyes to simply witness, and then it all exploded, blasting back the front of the still-rising dead and bringing a barrier of wildfire between the two of them and the Scourge. With that, the prince was down on his knees on the ground, his body shaking, shuddering uncontrollably. He'd exhausted himself and no wonder - the electric scent of thunder clung to him and his collapsed form, but even in contact to the ground his clothes were unstained by the ashen dust and the smoke of the fire he’d cast and even by his own blood. Rommath lowered himself down to the dirty earth with him and pressed his hand over Kael's, attempting to bring him back to him, back to the words he'd spoken.

"Be gone," Kael'thas breathed, his voice mixing with the crackling of the fire as just another depth within it. "Go and leave me to my fate."

"I'm afraid I'd rather not," Rommath said, "I may be the last friend you have but at least you have me. Is there anyone else you trust - anywhere else I could take you now?"

He brought his hand up the prince's arm to support him by his shoulder instead, helping him keep steady and regain his strength. Words didn't seem to come easy, but if anything Rommath was accustomed to that; Kael'thas had hardly been known for speaking without thinking first. In the end, he'd asked him a hard question.

"Jaina," Kael finally let out.

"The Proudmoore girl? From Dalaran?"

"Yes; Jaina Proudmoore. You know her, and you asked for one I still trust. I trust her."

The prince's words attempted sharpness but failed. He didn't have the strength left for snapping at Rommath. He was spent, completely exhausted, and Rommath wondered if his hand was really the only thing keeping him upright at all now. He sighed. 

"Something tells me this won't be the kind of an audience she was hoping to receive tonight," he said, his head tilting as he tried to catch a glimpse of Kael's face from behind the veil of translucent hair drawn over it. "Would you do me the simple favour of not falling apart while I give her prior notice?"

Kael'thas snarled, and that was all the response Rommath got. Good enough, he thought and closed his eyes.


	8. A Much-Needed Break

* * *

Jaina woke up. At first she thought she'd been stirred by a gust of wind - she could still feel it lingering in the room. Only then did she recognise the energy in the current, that familiar spark of magic like the feel of pressure lingering in the air, and noticed the fine hair on her arms standing upright with her skin raw on goosebumps. Tiredly she climbed up into a sitting position, briefly wondering when would she ever catch a proper night's sleep again, but when she focused her gaze around the room looking for the source of the current, all sleep shed from her in an instant. There were sparks floating just beside her - they formed the rising phoenix of Silvermoon City and the kingdom of Quel'Thalas.

Bitterly she thought it hadn't taken too long for her to run into this matter again. How long had it been, exactly? Kael'thas had left her hideout mere hours ago, and there was no other reason for anyone to be contacting her from Silvermoon at this hour this soon after. What would it be, she wondered as she reached to close the phoenix in her hand; had they caught her co-conspirator, or was this about whatever the prince had gotten himself into after leaving her behind? The sigil dispersed, revealing her present location to the one inquiring. It was hardly worth wondering about. She'd find out soon enough, in her nightgown, in the middle of Theramore city - the last place on earth she wanted to be involved in this all. She picked herself up with her blanket still hanging over her shoulders. Within a moment she’d set herself before her two-way mirror, expecting a contact, and... then, before her behind the glass suddenly hovered the vision of an elf she'd certainly seen before, but never spoken to. He'd always been with Kael'thas, and he'd called him Rommath, although she didn't know his last name and thus couldn't be quite certain how to address him now.

"Good - evening, is this, or perhaps morning?" Rommath's illusion spoke; his voice was distorted, as it often would be when other magic interfered with the link. "You may not remember me; I am the grand magister of Quel'Thalas, we've met briefly in Dalaran before and you may know me as Rommath from then. I'd offer my apologies for waking you but the time is running quite short and I need to cut the pleasantries here. You were a friend of Kael'thas Sunstrider in Dalaran, if I'm not entirely mistaken."

Friend, Jaina thought; yes, they'd been friends. Not the same way Rommath had been friends with him, but was that not how she herself had described their relationship?

"Yes," she simply replied, covering her body further with her knitted blanket. "He was my friend once."

"He seems to think of you that way still," Rommath stated simply, "I would love nothing better than to explain this now, but there truly is no time. Would it be too much of a burden to you to offer both myself and him shelter for the night?"

Well - among the things Jaina had expected, including a contact from Kael'thas himself or an arrest by a foreign nation... this was not it. She wanted to ask more, but Rommath had made himself very clear: there was no time to talk. She felt like sighing deeply when she made her decision, cursing her past self from days ago when she'd initially given her consent to all of this, _all_ of this, including tonight, and any night to come until the day she'd finally regain her senses and say it had to end now. Tonight was not that night.

"I will send you a location," she promised, "You may go there and I will follow soon after."

"Most delightful," Rommath said in a tone that conveyed a hint of - was it sarcasm, or simple exhaustion pushing through his words? All Jaina was certain of was that it was hardly sincere, or even remotely aimed at her and her words had merely prompted it. He hadn't even looked at her when he'd spoken, but now he was once again. "My apologies once more for most certainly waking you up and for putting you through this, Lady Proudmoore. Had I any choice, I would have asked someone else. I will see you soon."

The illusion faded, leaving Jaina alone in her bedroom hugging her blanket. Slowly, she released it; it tumbled down her form until it had collapsed in a heap on the floor beneath her feet. Closing her eyes she conjured up a vision of the mansion on its rocky island, thought upon it until she could have simply envisioned herself in it and opened her eyes there in reality, but instead of teleporting herself she cast that feeling into a burst of magic and sent it after the magical trail Rommath's contact had left behind, knowing it would find him like his sigil had found her. Perhaps it was the wind from the marshland creeping in, but the room felt cold afterwards, and it was that chill that moved her from where she’d stood, not so much the promise she'd made to be elsewhere in just a little while. She dressed herself feeling her brows furrow more and more tightly the entire time, but she couldn't muster thoughts to form properly in her tired mind. Had she not expected this? A dry smile appeared and disappeared from her lips. Yes, she had. It had never been meant to be so easy as to see Kael'thas back on his feet and then never again, had it? She'd made a choice with consequences she couldn't imagine yet, consequences that entirely depended on him - his choices, his resilience. It seemed that he had really gone back to Quel'Thalas, a decision that in itself did not surprise Jaina in the least, but that Rommath would then contact her, not Kael'thas, not a messenger bringing news second- or third hand to her about whatever had followed since - that had come as a surprise. They'd never spoken directly before, not if a nod and a polite greeting were not counted. He'd often been there when Kael'thas had found her in Dalaran, and then went on his own way leaving Kael behind to tutor Jaina or to simply have a conversation, never quite interested enough to stay around or indeed curious enough to intervene. She'd seen him, he'd seen her, but never had there been any reason for them to communicate, and thus she knew very little of him or where he'd gone after the Scourge had attacked Silvermoon and Quel'Danas. He'd vanished with Kael'thas, and she'd never seen him since. And soon after, she herself had left. She hadn't given him a thought in years.

 _He seems to think of you as a friend still_ , Jaina recalled his words. Had Kael'thas told him that she'd been responsible for - no, it wasn't possible. He'd given no indication of being in the know about the conspiracy. But he'd certainly been in the know about Kael'thas himself. What did he want of her? The grand magister of Quel'Thalas... was this official? It seemed she'd really gotten herself tangled up in this now. The thought didn't please her. Still, she steadied herself and let her magic carry her from her bedroom - should anyone come looking for her later, she'd have to come up with a formal excuse for her disappearance. For now, she still had a few hours before she'd be missed by anyone.

*

Rommath held onto Kael, the prince's weight resting mainly upon him and only implicitly on his own feet. He could feel the sharp hardness of his nails against the back of his robes imitating some form of a grip on him, but it loosened soon as he let him down on the tiled floor of the entrance hall. Kael'thas felt ice cold to him, despite all the magic he'd turned into fire; he was barely breathing, but he was very much conscious still, as if _only_ to avoid ever looking in Rommath's direction. The Grand Magister looked around them, his fingertips pressed into Kael's shoulder even as he straightened up beside him, as if that touch could keep him upright. The mansion looked abandoned, not decrepit or in any state of disrepair but simply _unlived in_ like a place no one had spent time in for months. He uttered a word, casting sparks of fire floating towards the candles on the walls, and in the light of the fire instead of only the faint sheen of approaching dawn through the windows he realised he hadn't been quite right; no dust clung to the stairs or the dark, polished wooden railings. The anchor symbol of Kul Tiras was etched into the panels in the walls, giving him a better understanding of where in the world they'd ended up in, but nothing quite clear enough to make any sense of it. 

His hand sought out Kael's chest, pressing over his collarbone as he returned down on his level, kneeling down on the cold floor. He tried once more in vain to catch the prince's eye but he was very determined to not give him the simple satisfaction, not even when spoken to.

"Are you still with me?" he asked him anyway.

Kael'thas nodded stiffly.  
"You should have left me," he stated to the tiles below.

"And come here all by myself?" Rommath huffed, "No, thank you. What would Halduron have done with you, anyway? Lor'themar made his will quite clear; he wanted you out of Quel'Thalas, not _me_. Well, as far as I can tell - we're both out of Quel'Thalas now, so the regent lord should be quite pleased with the outcome. He was never too happy to have me there to begin with. He keeps implying I'm bad company. Can you believe that?"

He grabbed a firm hold of Kael's arm and dragged him up; he felt him coming to meet him, finally managing to stand up again even if it would have certainly been a wasted effort had Rommath not supported him with his own frame. It was killing Rommath - the way there was nothing to him anymore, nothing at all, no magic and no physical power. He'd never, not once, seen Kael'thas so weakened and _lifeless_ , like he'd given up. There had always been a fire within the prince, one that had no doubt made him so adept with his magic, too; he'd been fiercely, vigorously alive, and that very strength that radiated from him had always made him the leader that Rommath would have followed off the edge of a cliff had it only served some goddamn purpose too. Had it at least served Kael'thas's own mind, not that of... whatever he'd chosen to submit to in the end. Those choices, as limited and forced as they had been under the circumstances that had brought them here, had all but obviously drained him even of what had made him the man Rommath had known and befriended. There was so little left to him, just this shell of bitterness and grief and the hunger that even the Sunwell now couldn't sate, that he felt as dead to Rommath as the skeletons they'd left behind in the Dead Scar. 

Halduron and his rangers were no doubt thanking him for leaving them to deal with _that_ , Rommath thought as he pulled them both onwards and to the staircase leading up to the second floor. Nothing better than a good skirmish against a horde of the undead in the middle of the night. It could hardly be helped, however; he could have watched Kael'thas burn himself to the ground and see before him the emergence of something that used the skin of his former prince as its vessel for nothing but bottomless thirst, but that had never been an option. There were two kinds of pain in the world: the pain of losing someone, and the pain of watching them lose themselves. Rommath had seen the addiction take others and the moment he'd first seen Kael in the Grand Library he'd know all too well that he was closer to that place than he was to being an elf. Now in this - this weakened, exhausted form that he helped sit down on the lowest stair, there was even less of Kael'thas within. Perhaps a mere flicker, a memory more than anything, but he was still there, which meant that no matter what at least Rommath hadn't been too late to spare that spark. He still had something in him that was separate from the arcane hunger, even if that something was nothing but the depth and rawness of all the losses he'd suffered and all the wrong choices he'd made. Rommath hoped it had been worth saving, even if he'd never truly had a choice. He couldn't help but think it was exactly the boundless will to live that had once resided within Kael that had spared him so far. He'd been through hell, anyone could see that - his physical being was all but ruined by magic, and whatever lived inside was twisted by it just the same, but he was still not all gone. He still had a _will_ within.

"Kael," Rommath called.

Once more, Kael'thas turned away from him.

"You asked me to contact the Dawnblade. Since I assume you couldn't convince Lor'themar to welcome them back, what would you have me tell them now?"

He saw the prince still, a focus returning to his eyes for a moment. Then it dimmed and he shook his head.  
"Tell them I've failed them," Kael'thas laughed, his voice void of any emotion besides low-burning anger.

"I will do no such thing. They need better news than that. Remember our people, shattered by the loss; your forces are the same now. They have no land to return to. They have no leader to look up to. They're scorned and exiled. What will you tell them? Think of Dath'Remar; think of our exile. They need a leader - they need their prince."

Another laughter escaped Kael, and this one was more alive. Even his eyes now turned back to Rommath.  
"I am a disgrace to my bloodline. Dath'Remar would -"

"Enough of the self-pity, Kael," Rommath cut him off, "It won't help anyone now. I need a command or I swear I will send one myself and you can only wish you'd used your chance when you had it. They need you. I will not back down on this, if only because when I last saw you you cared so much for it still. Mere hours later now and you claim you don't at all! I am not listening to this. The world has not ended and neither have you and I will not let you be consumed by your dark thoughts any more than I let you be eaten alive by the Scourge and your own damn magic. You're still here; do something with it, or I've been a damned lunatic to put any faith in you at all."

Maybe he would have gotten an answer, as Kael stirred dangerously in front of him, but the sudden appearance of Lady Jaina Proudmoore beside them stopped him in his tracks. Rommath turned, still fuming, but when he met her vision he immediately felt the frustration in him subside; it was like a breeze of fresh air to see her, as much as he hated the thought of anything relating to Dalaran still making him feel so calmed, but the last time he had laid eyes on her it had been a much, much better time yet.

"Good morning, my lady," he spoke pleasantly as if the previous conversation had never existed at all.

Jaina bowed her head to him.  
"Grand Magister," she said pleasantly with a small smile before turning to examine Kael'thas on the stairs.

It was clear as day now - the shame that shadowed Kael as he escaped her gaze.

"May I have an explanation for this?" Jaina asked, her eyes never lifting from the prince.

"Most certainly," Rommath concurred, "Although I cannot promise it will be one that makes much sense."

"I'm afraid we both have some explaining to do," Jaina replied dully, "and not much of it will make sense - from my end, I am afraid, as much as from yours."

She then knelt before Kael'thas and offered him her hand, and although it seemed to greatly pain him to do so, the prince took it and let her help him up. Rommath offered his shoulder to him again, and Jaina moved ahead of them, motioning them to follow.

"I have a room set aside for visitors," she said in a voice that sounded oddly conspiratory for its mundane contents, "We can leave him there to rest while we get up to date on how we may have ended here tonight."

She led them down a corridor to a door that opened to an ordinary guest bedroom, one with a double bed and a fireplace she lit with a wave of her hand. Rommath lowered Kael down on the bed and pressed his knuckles against the prince's cold jaw, prodding him to look up at him.  
"Think of the words you want me to relay," he told him quietly.

Kael nodded, then looked away again, shaking Rommath's hand off his face, and Rommath was almost certain he wasn't strong enough to speak again. It would do him good to rest while others handled the difficult part.

*

Dawn came and broke, spreading into early, hazy morning over the sea-scape surrounding them. Jaina poured herself another cup of wine, Rommath was tasting his third; it was the most casual she'd ever been with an elf, she realised. There was a hardness to the grand magister not unlike that which Kael had about himself and it was easy to see how they'd become friends; they both had a firm and fiery nature fitting for their choice in magic, and only few sharp words to share of subjects that displeased them. She learned very fast that amongst those subjects was Kirin Tor itself. Rommath was most displeased with them and held no fondness for Dalaran or his days there, rather only for what had been a better time for the elves as a whole - he was loyal, too, to the cause of his own people, another trait he seemed to share in earnest with his friend. 

"So," Rommath spoke then, having finished his recounting of the night, "May I inquire why a mage of the Kirin Tor and an ardent enemy of the Burning Legion, I would hope, should so easily invite its servant to recover under her host? You didn't ask me any questions."

Jaina blushed. She didn't like being reminded of the inherent betrayal of her actions. She preferred to think of it as a personal debt paid to a friend, but of course, Rommath was right and she wasn't deceiving herself either - Kael'thas was no longer someone whose role she was free to forget so easily, even if in the years before he had perhaps wished she could do exactly that. Still, she faced up to it.

"A _former_ mage of Kirin Tor,” she started with what felt like the easiest part, ”I always felt I should have done more for him, and when you contacted me, I thought I could -"

"Don't lie to me, Lady Proudmoore. It is most obvious you are keeping something secret. I have a keen eye for traitors and liars these days - call it a consequence of my personal history seemingly surrounded by them. I bore easily when lied to so bald-facedly. Yet I can't place you in the story: why would someone of your fair reputation get herself tangled up with the Legion? Power? Could power tempt you? I don't think so. You don't seem the type. You don't have that in you, do you, that inherent greed for something more. So what is it, really?"

Now, she couldn't help but sigh. He was keen-eyed for sure: she'd been lying all day long about where she'd been and would continue to do so even if it pained her to keep secrets, yet here she was again, forcing herself into them. Perhaps she could compromise yet. She lifted her eyes.

"You may inquire," she told him, "but I must ask the same of you. You said you served Kael’thas before but changed your mind when you saw what he was truly planning - who he was allying himself with. Yet here you are now that he's most certainly shown his true colours, asking me to shelter you both. He is on the run and you are, once more, by his side. Why? Could I not as easily assume that you, too, have been promised something by his allies or even his _master_ , as you are implying that maybe I have been?"

Rommath squinted, sipping his wine.  
"Fair enough," he admitted, leaning back. "It seems we are both friends of his from the past who have made some questionable choices tonight."  
His eyes glassed over as he aimed them towards the sea, which had now assumed a silvery blue-grey colour and a veil of rising mist. Seagulls had started their never-ending calls, which echoed from the rocky shoreline and the walls of the mansion around them. The greenery looked wet with dew, the low-hanging leaves of the weeping willows planted what looked as if a hundred years ago bent over the pathway to the main entrance, glistening like gemstones.

"It appears that I am still hoping - stupidly, naïvely... but still _hoping_ that there is a way to break through the lies fed to him by the Legion," Rommath continued after a moment had passed between them, the ocean and the wine; "I will never be convinced to follow him down that path. What would I do with Kil'jaeden's promises? What could he give me? More magic, a kingdom? I want none of it. I am tired, Jaina. But what I could not do was watch my friend turn before my eyes. You've heard what happened to us, what our addiction and over-indulgence can do to us. Kael'thas was hit hard by it. I would listen to him pace all night because sleep simply would not come to us. The stronger the mage, the more haunted we became. I feared for my own sanity. I don't understand how he kept his, or if he ever did. Perhaps this madness brewed early in him, though I was inclined to blame Arthas for his anger then. I watched so many fall ill and so many _died_ , my lady -"

"You can call me Jaina," Jaina interrupted, as she'd already done thrice, falling silent as Rommath nodded... dismissively, having barely so much as noted her complaint.

"- the ones who did not die sometimes turned... into something lesser. Something that wasn't quite... right anymore. The arcane became all they could think of. It scared us all, I believe; to know that we could be next if we simply gave into the temptation. Giving in was always easier, you see, and we all undoubtedly entertained the thought, but at first we had nothing to give in _to_ , so those of us who couldn't bear it simply died before our eyes, withered and crazed. And then, long story short, we had to flee to the Outland, and it was during these months that Kael'thas would discover a solution - we could draw energy from other sources. We could use the fel to keep ourselves alive, and most importantly, to keep ourselves sane. My part in this story ends there, I'm afraid; he sent me back to Silvermoon to teach others to do the same, so that our people would no longer suffer. Theirs, and his, don't end there. After we introduced the fel magic, instead of _dying_ the weakest of our people simply went insane. Their dependence took over and they would burn themselves up with magic trying to sate the hunger. More and more and more each time, because every time you go back, it feels worse than before. You can never quite feel how it felt the first time ever again."

The tip of Rommath's tongue touched the surface of his lower lip, followed by his teeth that pulled it back; he was looking somewhere far away, but Jaina recognised that idle action. She'd seen Kael'thas do the same so many times before. He returned to her briefly after, his expression strained and calculative.

"You see what he's been through? The way that magic has twisted him? I think it started a long time ago, when he first took the turned mooncrystals we'd used to destroy the Sunwell. They'd taken all the corruption within it, and it had changed them; Astalor thought he should keep them, but I was doubtful then. It was his decision to keep them. Where they are now I do not know and I could not care less at the moment, all I know is that the less he surrounds himself with fel magic the better it has to be for him. He might not agree with me, however, and ultimately the choice is his."

"I agree with you," Jaina told him firmly. "And I understand - you didn't want to see him turn like those of your people who'd fallen already."

"There is no worse fate. I did not act against my orders, exactly; I did tell Lord Theron that he would have no casualties to grieve, but I did not explicitly promise I'd be back. I can only hope he understands. Now, would you be honest with me? My reason is my love for my friend, as misguided as it may now be. What is yours?"

For a moment, Jaina gathered her thoughts. Rommath didn't seem to mind; he took another sip of his wine and fell quiet with her, and she gazed at the surface of the polished, carved table, and he kept his eyes on the ocean. Jaina wondered briefly what he was seeing there that was so captivating to him. He lived by the shoreline, did he think of home like she often found herself thinking when she stood against the tide?

"I'm afraid I am the same," she started; "I wasn't lying when I said I always felt I could have - _should_ have - done more for him. I still don't know what I could have done that would have changed anything, but I've felt guilt for the wrong words that I chose, for the wrong things that I did, and for my own inability to... oh, it sounds so silly when I'm speaking it out loud. As if I could have - but I _should_ have, I wish I could have, changed how everything happened. I saw him that night, before he left Dalaran; I saw how much pain he was in and I couldn't do anything to help."

Rommath nodded.

"I was lying", Jaina continued, "when I acted as if my choice was new when you called upon me. No, I was first contacted by one of his Sunblades."

"Who was it?"

Jaina shook her head.  
"I don't know," she said truthfully, "We never exchanged names. He knew enough about me and my friendship with Kael'thas to hope that I would still wish to help him, should it come to it - he saw no way out of what Kael'thas had pushed them into and wanted desperately to ensure the prince would live through the siege."

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Rommath said, sounding surprised nonetheless, "Kael'thas always had those who were unquestioningly loyal to him, even in the beginning, although many died before it got to this point. It takes courage to break such loyalty, even to _save_ the one you swore to serve. The Sunblade does not lack courage. Ironic, really."

"He and another elf I have never met in person participated in the assault to recover Kael'thas after his defeat. I - may have theorized, based on their descriptions of what had become of him, that he might be harder to kill than it would seem, even in such a weakened state. I was proven right... and they brought him to me."

"So you were the one who opened the portal past the Shattered Sun's defenses," Rommath said. He now sounded thoroughly amused, entertained. "Unbelievable."

Jaina's blush deepened.  
"I wanted to believe," she said defensively, "perhaps like yourself - stupidly, naïvely - that I could help him, that even though I couldn't do much for him when he needed me I could help him now. I realised very soon I'd been ignorant. I should have learned from history. Fel magic corrupts deeply... there was very little I could do beyond remove the immediate source of that corruption. He was - when he arrived here, I - I have never seen anything like it."

"So I've heard," Rommath said darkly. "But you did help him. After all, he made it all the way back to the Sunfury Spire. He met with Lor'themar and both of them lived through it! And then, I assume, all of it was simply too much for him. I don't know what happened between the last time Lor'themar saw him and when we tracked him down to the Dead Scar, but... it doesn't look too good."

That didn't quite cover it. He'd been recovering when he'd left the previous evening, and now - Jaina had felt so much corruption in him again that she'd shyed away from the touch of his hand on hers the moment Rommath had taken his weight off her. Drawing a deep breath in she pulled herself upright, emptied her glass of wine and placed it back on the table.

"I will bring him something to eat," she said, her voice betraying that she was hardly present in the room anymore. "I don't know when he's last had anything."

"I can almost guarantee that he did not stop to eat in Silvermoon," Rommath said, leaning back in his chair once more.

"Not here, either. So it should be safe to say - it has been a while."

The magister nodded, turned his head towards the window and lost himself in his glass. Jaina took her time looking through the kitchen's limited offerings; she could have conjured something, but... he'd once said he found human food better, that he'd acquired a taste for it. She remembered that, and so, even though it wasn't much, she gathered an apple and some bread to take with her. Figuring his head was enough of a mess already she bypassed the wine and, now with the help of her magic, brewed some coffee instead; it was morning, after all, not that anyone in the house had slept enough to face it - or indeed slept at all.

"Lady Proudmoore," Rommath called when she was about to leave the room, stopping her by the doorway. He examined her and she answered his gaze questioningly.

" _Jaina_ ,” she corrected him once again. ”Yes?"

"He would never tell me why he liked your company so much. What was so special about it? What did you two talk about?"

Jaina shook her head.  
"Nothing. We spoke of magic or the weather or the everyday going-ons of our lives, mostly, and he helped me study. I think he found me delightfully simple in comparison to his other company. I was a young girl, after all; I didn't know much about anything then. Maybe I provided him with a much-needed break from his business with the Kirin Tor, or so it was said."

Rommath nodded.  
"I see," he said simply, leaving her to finally exit the room.


	9. New Light

* * *

The guestroom felt warm when Jaina entered it, and she calmed the fire in the pit with her magic as she closed the door behind her. Kael'thas was almost as they'd left him, although he'd moved on the bed; he was now resting his back against the simple wooden frame set against the wall behind, and his arms were around his knees and his head pressed between them, his pale hair cast down over his arms and almost touching the bed but looking as thin and lifeless as it had been before. He was breathing slowly and deeply, Jaina noted - the change was good, natural.

"I brought you something to eat," she said more to announce her presence than with high hopes of him having anything she was offering. She sat on the bed beside him and placed the wooden tray there, then watched the apple roll and hit the edge in the silence that followed.

To her surprise, however, Kael'thas did eventually stir: he lifted his head, ran his hand over his forehead and down his cheek in a tired manner, then focused his gaze on the tray between them. His long, slender fingers separated and he brought his freed hand to the apple, picked it up and brought it to his lap. Sighing, he leaned back in the bed and gazed up at the simple wooden ceiling where an imitation of the sky had previously stretched over them.

"I did not ask for him to bring me here," he said, his voice hoarse and dry like he'd caught sand in his throat, "I didn't want to bother you more, Jaina. It's most painfully obvious to me that you want nothing to do with me."

He brought the apple to his lips and bit into it. Jaina realised she'd been holding her breath and she let it out, pulled one leg up on the bed and straightened her robes over her lap.  
"I want nothing to do with the man you've become, no," Jaina told him straightforwardly, "but I wouldn't mind having a moment together with the one you once were."

Kael'thas bit into the apple again, lowered it down and nodded slowly. He was very vehemently avoiding her eyes; she'd already noticed him doing it to Rommath earlier, and it didn't surprise her. She softened her approach a little, turning towards him; her knee pressed against the hem of his robes, now clean and bright crimson again instead of the blackened and torn ones he'd had on him before. He jumped a little when she reached to him, and it was that start that made her realise she'd moved at all, but she kept going until she could undo the overcoat from him and the spaulders it was connected to, moving over him as he held his apple like a scared boy would hold onto a toy ball, and when she helped them off him she was surprised to find them quite light in contrast to the weight she'd expected. She folded the coat and placed it on the bedside table - the gold and crimson spaulders had to stay on the floor, as there was no surface wide enough to hold them. Then she turned her gaze back to him and sat down once more. Perhaps she would have spoken if her eyes hadn't found the now dried trails of blood on his hands peeking out from the spotless sleeves of his robes, and instead she brought her hand to him again, touching him lightly on the back of his wrist to make him undo his deathgrip of the apple. He did so; his hand separated from the fruit and she took it in her own and brought it close, her eyes on the numerous cuts on his palms that she couldn't reasonably explain. They weren't magical, and they looked rough, not like cuts from a knife or even a sword unless it was a rusty or a blunt one, and the blood was trailing the wrong way, not only towards his fingertips or between his fingers but up along his wrist and underneath the sleeve. She lifted it but he hissed, pulling his hand back.

"Leave it," he said, all but hiding the hand she'd touched in his lap.

"And what for? Would you tell me _what_ have you been doing to cut yourself up like that?"

He bristled, but didn't speak. Perhaps he didn't know, either - or maybe he was too ashamed to tell. Frustratedly Jaina reached up to him again and dug out the hand he was hiding from her, and although he was clearly hesitant to let her do so, he didn't exactly put up a fight to stop her. She took a hold of the sleeve again and tugged it out of the way, following the trail of blood to - she took a short gasp of breath before shutting her mouth and holding it in, steadying herself before moving the sleeve out of the way completely. He had a gaping wound in his arm, but the bloodflow had been halted and there was a scab forming around a rough-cut shard, a piece of a gemstone; it looked almost black to her, but she was quite sure it had once glowed bright like the one she'd shattered from his chest. Muttering a curse under her breath, she let his hand free again and stood up, looking around the room; there were still some linens in the wardrobe, and without hesitating she spread one out and tore a rag out of it with her powers, hanging the rest from the wardrobe's corner. With steady steps she walked back to him, grabbed his arm and pulled his sleeve up; she covered her hand with the rag and took a hold of the shard, looking him deep in the eye as she pulled it out, slowly and carefully but well knowing that it had to be incredibly painful to him. Fresh blood surged out immediately, staining the cloth she held, but... it was as red as the crimson of his clothes, not darkened and stained by the fel in him. Jaina wasn't sure what she'd expected, but she knew exactly what she'd feared.

Quickly she cast the spoiled gem aside; it hit the stone floor underneath the bed like a piece of glass scattering droplets of blood around it, but she was too busy pressing the linen cloth against the wound to think about it further. He was relaxing under her touch now, his arm limp and his hand resting on her knee where she appeared to have left it, and his other hand was still holding the apple which he now brought back up to his lips and bit, his head firmly turned away from her.

"Rommath told me," Jaina said quietly, "about what happened to the elves after you had to destroy the Sunwell. I don't blame you, I'm just - I suppose it shocks me to see it. Hearing of it is different."

"Nevermind this," Kael said in a low growl, still avoiding her gaze as determinedly as up until then, "This is hardly the worst that has happened to my people. I've seen it, Jaina; I've seen what this addiction does to them. I needed help to solve it, and this - was a step towards a cure, a stable source we could use."

"You have the Sunwell now. You don't need another source."

"Who are you to tell us what we need?" he snapped, and now, _finally_ , he was looking at her again.

She pressed the cloth against his self-inflicted injury a little more firmly, her lips thinning. He backed down in an instant, reminded of himself by the sharp pain.

"It was enough before," she corrected herself then. "What changed?"

Even in his silence, Jaina realised she already knew the answer. They'd had a taste of something better, something that the source that had sustained them for millenia couldn't hold a candle to - many others had fallen to it before them. It made them stronger, it made them feel invincible... for a short time. And then, then it sucked them dry of all that they'd been before. Like it had done to him. Finally she sighed, turning her gaze back to the wound she was still pressing.

"You need a healer."

"For a cut?" Kael replied, sounding dismissive. "Hardly."

"Do you want me to stay here pressing on this all day?" Jaina asked, but even as she spoke she had a lingering doubt that perhaps he did want that, or at least whoever he'd been before might have wished for it. She wasn't sure how that thought made her feel, but somehow it seemed to ease her tension a little bit to remember the man he'd once been. "No. I'll put a bandage on it, but it'll leave a scar."

"Then so be it. What difference will one more make?"

Jaina swallowed, but she couldn't keep herself from turning a blazing look at him.  
"Would it kill you to care about something?" she asked him. "Anything would do. You're starting to remind me of someone I'd rather forget."

Their eyes met; there was a sharpness in Kael's that pleased Jaina. It was the first edge she'd seen in the way he appeared since she'd gotten there.

"Great," she found herself saying before she could stop it, "you still care about Arthas."

"I suppose that would make two of us, then. A good place to start; we finally have something in common again," he said, and his voice was velvety and smooth and somehow... amused. Jaina wanted to feel something - she wanted to feel insulted, angry, belittled, any reaction would have done, but instead she was filled with a calm that barely even rippled at his attempts at getting to her. It felt the same way it had when they'd last seen, before he'd left Dalaran for the last time; as if the words weren't even aimed at her. At the same time it revealed the full depth of how much he'd changed. The false courtesy and pleasantness of how he'd initially treated her was gone now, leaving behind bitter words and a depth of hatred that felt to her like looking through glass into a deep, dark pit. She'd seen glimpses of it many times by now in how easily he'd angered and how fast he'd turned to digging his claws into her weaknesses and barely-healed wounds at slightest opposition, but he wasn't covering it up anymore, and there was an honesty to the way he acted now that at least satisfied her curiosity.

Carefully she lifted the bloodied cloth off his arm. The cut wasn't bleeding so heavily anymore, even if fresh blood glistened over the surface the moment she removed the linen that was now a shade of deep red from all that it had soaked up.

"We used to have many other things in common before," she said in an off-handed manner as she stood up and crossed the room for the linen still hanging over the wardrobe.  
It would have to do for now. She'd see about finding some real dressings in Theramore - later - but until then as long as the cut was covered it wouldn't get infected or irritated, and that was as much as she could do for him. "Arthas was never one of them before, but you loved the orchards as much as I did. I think we used to run into each other there at least as much as we did in the libraries."

Her magic flared, scattering about a rain of sparks, as she tore long shreds out of the cloth. She didn't look at him when she turned again, instead aiming for the tray; she picked up the cup of coffee when she sat down and offered it at him. She'd lost his gaze again; he rather granted it to the core of the apple he now discarded on the tray before picking up the warm porcelain cup she was holding for him.

"Did you tell me you liked apples just because you wanted to have a pleasant conversation? I couldn't help but wonder," she asked as she returned her hands over her lap and adjusted herself to face him again, preparing to pull up his sleeve and do for his wound what she could with her scraps of linen. She didn't look at his expression but something about his body language told her that this was a painful subject; he'd tensed somewhat, his movements becoming more calculated and subtle even as he lifted the mug to his lips and drank in silence.

"It's rare to find an elf who doesn't frown upon our offerings," she continued then; "Your kind seems inherently suspicious of anything that didn't grow within your own borders."

"Look at us," he finally said, "back at idle conversation again. Once I wished that it would be you seeking to find the right words to speak, and yet I always found myself at it; now, finally... in almost a different life, I have that. Apples - yes, we've exchanged words on apples before."

"So which one is it?" Jaina asked, taking a firm hold of his hand and pressing it on her lap to straighten out his arm. She felt him jump at her touch again, and the sensation pleased her deeply.

"I lived with _your kind_ long enough to recognise when the food has spoiled. Ours doesn't tend to do that. You may see how this would make us 'inherently suspicious' to your offerings; who knows what mold is growing on it?"

The urgency in his words, the searching he'd clearly had to do for them, was another source of entertainment for her.

"But there is something you can't have in your own," she spoke pleasantly, unfolding the makeshift bandages. "Something that comes at the price of decay. Something you claimed to cherish."

"I did," he replied, then fell to a strained silence for a heartbeat. "I do."

He drowned his defeat in a sip of his drink, but Jaina couldn't hold back her victorious smile. _Caught you_ , she thought.

*

When had he last slept? The room kept fading around him, in and out and in and out again, to a vastness of stars and flashes of lights, to moons and clouds of magic swirling restlessly in the Nether. And then it was there again: wooden ceiling, wooden walls, tiled floors. An echo of dripping water from outside somewhere, tip-tapping the window's frame. Drip. Drip. Almost like knocking. Knock... knock.

For what felt like a thousandth time that same stretch of a day, or a hundred - he could have slept for a hundred days, restlessly, without ever truly feeling asleep... he jolted back into wakefulness, the sound of Kil'jaeden's voice echoing in his ears, wordless but demanding his attention. Kael'thas was shaking from head to toe and he couldn't shed the film of wetness over his skin even though he'd stripped down to nothing but the long shirt and loose pants he wore underneath the robes, and even now in the sunlight pouring in from the window through that never-shifting fog that had made its home on the island, that shirt was all too bright for what his eyes could take, bright and unforgivingly orange, a tangy half-way point between crimson and gold. What a cursed, horrible existence he was trapped in; not awake, not asleep - not focused, but not blissfully unaware either. He couldn't think; the fog was inside his mind as much as it was outside the house. Creeping in through the cracks in the walls. The demon was not there. Perhaps he fell asleep again, but the room faded.

Rommath's hand rested over his side. His weight was a depression in the bed that wanted to pull Kael's body into it.

"He's not," the magister's voice said.

A female voice said something a little further away. What, Kael couldn't tell. He wanted to go back to sleep. He couldn't move his body.

"What could we replace it with? If we give him more, it'll just make it worse," Rommath continued.

"There has to be a way. He wasn't like this before."

"What did you do differently?"

_Jaina._

"I know what I did differently," she said; "Should I do it again...? Come; let's talk over something to drink. Could you do me a favour, Grand Magister?"

The weight lifted.

"What is it?"

"When you leave, I would greatly appreciate if you could pick up some things to bring here later."

The voices faded. The dripping sound was gone. Sunlight was turning brighter, piercing through the windows. Kael could hear the waves crashing against the rocks on the shoreline. His mind split; one half of it wanted to think of Sunfury Spire, of the dimly lit halls and rosy windows, of the quiet of his bedroom and the scent of Eversong drifting in with the wind. Half of it was a buzzing, discordant _need_ , a pull within his core that was draining him every moment, making him weaker. He wondered feverishly where the rest of his crystals had gone. He must have misplaced them. Surely they were still here somewhere.

Had he drained them all?

He started counting. Somewhere, a door opened; he could hear floorboards creaking above his head. In the next moment he felt a breeze against his face and hair, and with a sting of alertness he was up again, half-way out of the bed with his leg painfully twisted underneath him, and... then his eyes caught Jaina's. She examined him with a closed expression, then let go of the rug she'd been holding - a pelt of some kind - that thudded softly against the stone floor.

"Are you awake?" she asked him: a strange question to ask a man trying to untangle himself from his covers.

Kael pulled himself backwards to relieve the incessant, painful stretch of his leg. It tingled numbly. Then he nodded, his eyes moving from her to the now quite dark room; the fireplace was lit and there was no more sunlight coming through the windows.

"Good."

Jaina sat down at the edge of the bed and reached to touch him on the arm; the press of his shirt between their skins felt like coarse stone digging into his flesh. His attention was stolen by something else entirely, however; he could feel her pulsing with energy, with magic and life force so strong it was almost intoxicating to be in the presence of. His horizon tilted, leaving him with his elbow digging into his knee and his head resting against his palm. He felt nauseous and sick in so many ways, as if he'd drank poison and barely survived it.

"How do you feel?"  
Jaina's voice was mercifully quiet and subdued, as if she knew his ears felt ready to bleed at any and all sounds that surrounded him now. The crackling of fire was like whiplashes to him, sudden and agonizingly loud every time; the ocean in turn provided a constant grind of sand against stone, as if someone was polishing rocks just beside his head. He didn't know how to describe it, how to put it simply in an answer to such a mundane question, so he shook his head slightly.

"A kind of way I can't remember feeling before," he offered then, his eyes darting towards her and lips attempting a weak smile. "Nothing I would like to repeat again. Imagine drinking an entire cask of Dalaran red and waking up the next morning in the gutter of the Underbelly with the worst flu of your lifetime - and I still don't think it comes close, no."

Maybe it was the misery of his present condition that in contrast made her look so radiant, but to him, she looked as if she was glowing. She was tired, certainly, but the fair gold of her hair reflected the fire's glow warmly like a halo, and that same light granted a bronze contrast to the deep blue of her eyes, further turning their tone the same as that of a vast ocean under summer's sunlight. And the smile she gave him... it came so naturally to her. It wasn't like those timid, tense ones she'd always given him in Dalaran. There was something else to the way she looked at him now, a lack of caution, perhaps, that had gapped the distance between them. And maybe it should have offended him, but instead he felt some relief at the notion. The anger he'd earlier felt towards her - and everything else - had now faded, and he could barely remember it; all he had left of it was this throbbing sense of embarrasment, a feeling that in no manner made his overall suffering any easier on him. He felt a need to apologise, but he didn't quite know how to. He'd never done much of apologising before.

"Jaina..."

She waved her hand, then landed it upon his wrist and took a hold of it. He let her pull back his sleeve once again, and there was distinctive throbbing pain now underneath the bandages she'd tied around his arm that hadn't been there before, or maybe he simply hadn't felt it then. It felt irritated - infected - and when she undid the cloth wrapped around it, the wound seemed to only grow more sensitive, each movement an unwelcome disturbance upon it. When the linen was off, the skin it left exposed was an angry shade of red darkening towards the edges of the jagged cut. Kael'thas peered at it silently. It looked awful, he thought. There was only a faint memory left of how it had gotten there, and recalling the pain of the crystal's shard piercing his skin made the nausea within him swell angrily, so he let go of the thought and buried it as deep as it would go, replacing it with another glance at her. He wanted so badly to reach out to her in return, to stroke her hair... and before he could stop himself, he'd reached a hand to her. Her eyes turned for the motion but she didn't move otherwise, only let herself straighten back up into a proper sitting position where she waited for him to act. He did; he picked the loose strands of her hair and brushed them behind her ear, and she looked him in the eye as he did so, her expression unreadable. As his hand dropped back to his lap she moved again as if nothing had happened, picking up a bowl of steaming water and another piece of torn linen.

"I don't know if this will do anything," she said as she placed the bowl on the bed between them and dipped the cloth in it, "I thought of simple salt water; effective for cleaning normal wounds, but yours is partially magical, so I added a cleansing spell. Will that be powerful enough to combat the magic that's poisoning the wound? I don't know. Rommath thought it was worth trying nevertheless."

"Where is he?"

"He left for Silvermoon earlier this evening," Jaina replied. "He said he had to report back to the regent lord, but he promised to keep our location secret, as well as my involvement - for now."

The solution she carefully patted into the cut burned like acid. Kael stilled, his eyes closing in reflex and his upper lip curving like in an imitation of a dog showing its teeth, but then the pain easened and he could breathe again. He watched Jaina press the cloth on the wound again, then again, and each time she touched it the burn was easier to bear. Some of the darkness faded instantly, too, although it left the vivid, irritated red behind and made it look even worse than before.

"Meanwhile," she continued then, dipping the cloth back into the bowl before bringing it up to his arm once more, "You and I have both slept some, although at least my sleep was fitful and I don't think yours was any better - quite the contrary. I've also established a very shoddy excuse for my disappearance, and you, I've heard, owe words to your own followers as well."

"I see Rommath has already turned you to his side," Kael said bitterly.

Jaina huffed with a crooked smile.  
"He can be persuasive. And I think I've already discovered how you two became friends, but you must tell me if I'm wrong; he is very straightforward and short with his words whenever something displeases him, and quite silent when something doesn't. You must have felt a sense of kinship with him from the beginning."

"He used to get on my nerves," Kael'thas stated. "His humour is unbearable and he couldn't hold himself back from snapping at me whenever I irritated him in turn, and the thought of respecting me with his silence simply because of my royal status or higher position never occurred to him once. He has a razor-sharp mind, however, and we found it very easy to speak of spellcasting and the different uses of magic from the very moment we first met, sometimes for hours at a time. Eventually I suppose I learned to appreciate his rough edges; he would never hesitate to give me a different perspective, especially when I didn't ask for one. Astalor was always the more agreeable, more pleasant member of our group; perhaps that is why Rommath is here now and he is not. That kind of stubborness doesn't wear off easily."

Jaina's smile evened out, lingering subtly on her features as she cleaned the cut. When she pulled back again, dropped the blood-stained rag into the bowl and stretched her shoulders with a sigh, Kael tried again.

"Forgive me," he stated in a tone of admitted defeat, bowing his head a little but keeping his eyes on her, "for how I treated you earlier. I wasn't myself."

She shook her head, giving both her shoulders another good roll to relieve tension before relaxing. Her eyes turned towards her hands; her fingertips were wrinkly from the enchanted salt water and she examined them as she spoke.

"You don't need to tell me you weren't yourself," she said, "though I'm pleased to see a difference tonight. Do not make a mistake; your attempts at insulting me were weak at best and entertaining at worst, however, I would like to think that this is closer to who you really are than the elf I had to deal with this morning."

"Sleep-deprived, desperate and... overcharged," Kael'thas said thoughtfully, his head lifting once more, "I feel worse now but what I feel I fear is mere justice for the way I behaved towards you. And Rommath, no doubt; I have very little memory of our interaction, however, so he will have to ask for my forgiveness specifically for the things I said to him, as I cannot apologise for what I cannot recall."

"At least you were honest," Jaina noted, a sharp look in her eyes as she sought his gaze.

"If that is honesty, then it is not the kind of honesty I find necessary or desirable between us. I would like you to have as few reasons to hate me as possible, and I'm sure you can already come up with plenty," he stated dejectedly.

"List them for me, would you?" Jaina prompted. "I'd like to hear you tell me the things you think I should hold offense for."

"Ah," Kael'thas sighed, chin lifting a little as he watched her, "A test of my remorse."

"Mere curiosity, nothing more."

He nodded slowly.  
"Where would I start?" he asked, his gaze moving from her to the room, to the shadows dancing on the plain walls where trees had once stood. "From Dalaran, no doubt. Perhaps those were more... minor offenses, but you did not give me a threshold to compare with, so this... yes. Firstly, my behaviour when I discovered you and prince Arthas in that corridor you used so often to return from practice. I will not ask for your forgiveness for my reaction itself, but I would like formally state that I do not feel proud for mistreating a book in my anger. Moreover, for casting it in your direction; I was not angry at you, and that was not the kind of behaviour I hold myself to. No, it is still embarrassing. The years have not faded the memory. It is almost as bitter as the hurt I feel at remembering that in the first place. I wish I could forget."

"I suppose years are shorter for an elf," Jaina said, "To me, it seems a whole lifetime ago."

He tilted his head carefully.  
"It could have been yesterday. And yet... it has been very long since. The whole world has changed since. It was a different time and a different place, was it not?"

Their eyes met before he spoke again.

"I have already asked for your forgiveness for my words to you at our last meeting, and you've absolved me of those, yet I still feel I must list them now if I am to recount my... offenses. I don't know if my hatred of Arthas itself offends you as well - you must at least understand why I feel this way."

"He deserves your wrath. I cannot ask you to love him."

"He does indeed. Now, then, if I am to pass over that minor detail, what else would you hate me for? Perhaps my coldness and mistrust of those unlike myself. You have always welcomed those who are different and done your best to see the world from their perspectives, and I have, in the footsteps of my father, rejected them. I have learned long ago that we, the sin'dorei, are better off on our own. Alliances are so easily broken, and trust so easily abused. What good did Garithos do to me? I found more kinship and loyalty amongst the naga than I ever did with him, and he would have sentenced me to die for it. He _did_ sentence me, and all the elves at my service, to die for it. So forgive me, Jaina, but I cannot apologise for this either. I respect that you believe in good as firmly as you do but I hold no warmth for those who have proven themselves beyond it, and I most certainly do not owe them my respect."

She watched him closely as he spoke.  
"I remember what you once said of the orcs," she said when he'd finished, "You had no sympathy for their condition then as you saw that they had brought it upon themselves - that since it was their own choice, you said, they deserved the suffering of the consequences that followed. Would you now reconsider those words?"

A dry laugh escaped the elven prince. It hurt him physically, like a violent cough tearing through his chest and throat, and a jolt of pain thrust its way up his spine and into his head, dimming his vision even as he leaned it back to his hand.

"I had forgotten about that," he said truthfully. "How ironic. No, Jaina, I would not take my words back entirely, but perhaps I wouldn't be as hard in my opinion of the plight of the orcs now, having seen my own people suffer a fate even worse than theirs. I, too, do learn... from my mistakes and from my defeats, as well as my victories I suppose, as few and far inbetween as those seem to be. How could I not reconsider those words now, knowing that I've sheltered elves who were, even in my eyes, beyond all hope of recovery? Because of their own choices, perhaps, but ultimately as the innocent victims of their circumstances that led them down that path."

He turned his pale and colourless hands over in his lap, looking over the healing cuts breaking apart the texture of his palms.

"Would I judge myself so harshly?" he asked himself thoughtfully; "Perhaps I would be harder. No - the prince who spoke those words in the past would have never seen himself falling to my level. It would have been unthinkable. I have always been proud, Jaina, but I once also thought myself invincible, untouchable. No longer. I have learned a hard lesson - or two."

He offered her a small smile that she eagerly returned. It surprised him; he'd expected her to take longer to warm up to it, to show at least a hint of judgement or disgust before covering it with a thin smile. This one was her usual warm one, however. It did not judge him.

"Besides," he continued, "Are we not allied with the orcs now? Are my people not part of the Horde I once despised? Times have changed, Jaina. The elves, myself included, have changed with them."

She nodded.   
"And?" she asked.

"And?" he repeated, only for her to nod again. And then - as if he'd had a chance, he thought. Pushed to retreat with the naga, he'd found himself in the Outland with his army and nothing more, no other place to go but where Lady Vashj and the Betrayer were taking him. He'd given himself to that path. It had been... easy, perhaps too easy, to see the way ahead of him then. No - not quite yet. Not before he'd been eye to eye with Kil'jaeden himself, before the eredar lord had measured his heart and soul and spoken him honeyed words over the threat of a swift but merciless and agonizing death for him and his followers. He'd been promised earth and sky and unlike Dath'Remar, he'd judged it a fair bargain to take. Maybe he'd initially had doubts - maybe he'd once thought there would be a way out later, that he could somehow leave that pact like he left the one with Illidan, easily and without looking back, but... Tempest Keep had changed things.

His head throbbed, and at the back of his mouth he could taste the flavour of his insides, acidic and sharp. He should have stayed dead then, he thought: not out of longing for death although in comparison to his present condition it might have been preferable, but out of the suddenly growing awareness of what he'd become since. The change between who he'd been before he'd been cut down, before his own magic had threatened to tear him apart, and the mess that he now saw in himself... it was stark as daylight. What Delrissa had done to him had made him someone he could no longer recognise - someone he despised.

Jaina cleared her throat, and he startled to look at her once more. She was beyond beautiful in the night light. This thought replaced the horror he was feeling at his own circumstances, and for a moment he was lost in her; she had to see it, too, as she was watching him keenly. Her awareness of it made him feel intense guilt for what he felt for her. Still... was that not the first pure thing he'd felt since - he couldn't remember when it had been he'd felt something like it. Grief and anger and the thirst for magic had drowned out everything else, everything pure that had once balanced the bitter darkness he'd always recognised within himself. Here she was now, older and not so untouched by the world anymore but still just as beautiful, with just as much quiet intelligence and will burning behind her gaze. He'd always been so intensely attracted to that, perhaps more to the potential of what she held the promise to become than necessarily for what she had already been then. From the start his love for her had been based more in fantasy than their reality, he'd always known as much; after all, anything real between them would have been impossible. Now he'd lost everything else. What good would it do to deny himself this one frail flicker of a wish that wasn't rooted in someone else's destruction?

But would it be his, then? Loving her had never made him stronger. It had never healed him. It had only ever hurt him, made him despise himself for what he'd felt for her - and it had never made her love him more, or even like him any better.

"Kil'jaeden," he breathed out finally, the name causing a shudder that had been coming this whole time but which he'd held back with his will alone, "was a mistake."

He expected the world to break open there - expected it to simply crack out of the sheer force of a power that would come and take him for what he'd said. Nothing happened. In contrast, the silence was deeper than before; Kael's ears barely hurt from the ceaseless grind of the ocean waves, or the whipcracks of the fireplace. He felt somehow... more confident after saying it out loud.

Jaina nodded again.  
"A mistake that has been undone," she reminded him, "Kil'jaeden was defeated by the Shattered Hand, as I told you."

He nodded back at her, falling into silence. They both seemed to reflect upon it for some time before she moved again, placing the bowl of rust-coloured water and the cloth in it on the table instead. Her feet were drowning in the soft fur of the pelt she'd placed there, no doubt to stop the cold from biting her every time she sat there, but that's what she would get for walking barefooted in a mansion of this size - no room would ever be truly warm, Kael'thas thought to himself. Not at the sea, not against these winds.

"So," she said then, stirring; she pulled her feet up on the bed and faced him completely, her expression now determined and lit by some inner fire of hers that had been burning only dimly up until this point. "I have an offer to make, one that both myself and the grand magister hope might save your life."

"You have my attention," Kael'thas said, feeling nothing but bowing his head once again out of a habit to show her he was grateful.

"It seems I underestimated our circumstances," she began, "and thought it would do no harm to let you go as you please - untethered to my magic, and far away from it. Even after I took that... _thing_ out of your body, it never made you so sick as you have been this past day, and there is only one explanation for it that I can offer. Therefore, I'd like to offer my magic to you again, in place of those cursed gems that I plead you to never touch again. If you do - Rommath's word was that you will not come back from it, and I trust him, as his experience is vastly larger than mine on the matter. It is our hope that with the aid of my pure arcane you should begin to heal - and that the pain of recovery would not be as unbearable."

Kael let out another hollow laughter.  
"You think me within the reach of salvation still? I am far beyond it, Jaina. Look at me."

"I _am_ looking at you," Jaina countered firmly, "And I see that your skin has regained some colour since I took the source of the corruption away. I hear that your tone has softened, and I've noticed that you've had enough appetite to eat the food that I left you. I see that you still hold dear to you some things that are not imbued with magic to be drained, and that you have a conscience still, as deep as you may have tried to bury it. I do not see a lost cause, not yet, Kael: even if you've had me fearing the worst."

Her desperate yet firm determination touched something within him. He lowered his gaze to his withered body again, to his loose-fitting clothes, and dared to give it a chance - a glimmer of hope. Yes, if Kil'jaeden was truly defeated, or at least weakened for now and cast from this world, and he had not been sentenced to death after escaping his fate twice... could he still heal from this all? He'd seen others do it; turn back from the brink of destruction at the very last moment. And where would he go from there? Who would welcome him? Somehow it felt like it didn't matter. Not with her by his side. The thought was ridiculous, he knew that much as soon as he'd thought it, but the hope had now rooted itself within him and it refused to lift even though he tried to reason with it. It held firmly and it held hard, even prevailing against the rising tide of illness that forced his eyes closed and made him feel as if he was about to faint. The pain gripped him, but it was gone again in a moment. He needed her. She had offered her help. If only he could -

"Yes," he said, cutting himself off. "Yes, I accept your offer."

The relief on her was instant and obvious, although he could also see the shade of hesitation cross her when she reached out her hand. She hovered it between them and he realised he was afraid to take it; his own hands were so ugly in comparison, their colour unnaturally greyish and their skin broken by a hundred cuts and no doubt still stained by the tainted soil of the Dead Scar. Yet... she was right. When their hands touched, he had to accept that he no longer saw his flesh in the colours of the dead - he was pale, true enough, but in comparison to her naturally white hands it was the matter of a tone difference, not that of life and death. Her skin was warm and soft, the hold of her hand over his so delicate and calming... he turned his head away, but she touched him on the jaw and guided his gaze back to her.

"Do you know how to play the game of spark?" she asked him, and he nodded, although he couldn't quite understand what the question was leading to.

She smiled conspirationally and her grip of his hand tightened.

"When I push," she continued, "don't pull back."

"That's not -"

"Shh."

She pressed her free hand's index finger over her mouth, her smile never lifting. His breathing was shallower now; he wasn't sure how he would handle her energy, not when his battered body was all but shaking for the need of it, but he calmed himself and closed his eyes to hers, hoping it would make it easier to bear. It didn't; her warmth only grew more vivid against his skin, her skin softer, and her scent stronger. It enveloped him, and to make it worse he could _feel_ her magic stirring within her. He hadn't played with sparks since he'd been a boy, but it appeared that whatever she would ask of him, he would indulge her. Had it not been that way since he'd met her? She'd been too young for him to love then, but her charm had always been there, and he had been easy to convince. That was how he'd learned to look past her humanity, and instead, he'd seen her for the brilliant young mage she'd become soon after; on her nineteenth, he couldn't help but see a woman in her, too. It had haunted him then, and it still did, if to a much lesser degree - nineteen was nothing to an elf. An elven child would still be clinging to her mother's hem at that age. Humans... were strange, and different; she'd felt as if his age, if not for her damned naïvety, that uncorrupt innocence that made her ever so hopeful, ever so prone to daydreaming and those subconscious little smiles that he'd learned to love about her. He'd felt like damaged goods next to her, worn and frayed by his experiences, by war, by the weight of the world and the future of his kingdom that would one day rest upon his shoulders alone, and all the responsibilities that this fate had burdened him with already. Yet at the same time, her fierce belief in all good things and her will to see the best in all had returned some of that feeling to him as well - in her company, he'd felt as if perhaps he didn't have to be so damn old at such a young age for his own kind. With her, he'd had... a spark of hope.

Her mana pressed against him and broke through the barrier of flesh between them as if there was none. He felt a rush of electricity in him, his hair standing on end as she pushed at him, and a pang of craving momentarily all but blinded him - he wanted to tap into that energy so badly it was as if he'd been physically holding onto a beast that was struggling to escape, and he focused on his breathing, taking his mind away from the magic swirling between them and even within him now. He'd done it a million times before... resisted and persevered against this same need, even if it had never come to him like this before. The next push, one that if they'd truly been playing he would have deflected with a surge of his own magic but now forced himself to accept instead, took even his breath away. It locked itself within him and held on hard, and he could feel her breathing as her magic swelled and quieted with each breath she took. He could feel her heartbeat too, as it was almost as if a silent bridge had formed between the two of them, a bridge that he knew was carrying his anxiety over to her and bringing back to him a tension from her, and he feared that if he wasn't careful, she'd be reading his thoughts like Kil'jaeden had. He resisted the urge to push her away as she continued flowing her energy into him, and then... something broke - instead of the feeling of a foreign force invading him to his core, he felt like a bubble had broken and then a flood of warmth rushed into his body, a warmth that he recognised all too well as that of her mana flow replenishing his own. He expected the twist in his guts next, that feeling of his entire being rejecting the invasive energy that he'd connected his very being to, but... nothing came. Instead there was a feeling of relief so intense that he had to lean back, his palms digging into the mattress and his eyes still closed, head hanging back as he continued breathing, in and out, even as Jaina let go of his hand and stood up.

The pain was subdued instantly. There was no more of the arcane hunger that had been gnawing him empty from within, only a wish that he could feel _different_ now, it was unsatisfying and yet more satisfying than any burst of fel energy he'd taken into his body. It was hers, all hers, this magic that fed him and stabilized him - like a _part_ of her, and not only something that belonged to her. He could feel her holding back on it, however, as if afraid; he opened his eyes and looked at her once more, noticing that his vision was now much clearer, that things in it were sharper and not blurred by a never-shifting fatigue.

"How does it feel?" she asked him, although he thought it was impossible she hadn't felt the immense relief she'd given him, too, if he could still feel even her tension this clearly.

"Better," he told her. "Much better."

Her smile was subtle but warm, and she nodded in response to his words. She turned and walked to the fireplace to crouch in front of it; he watched her add wood into the pit, then stand up again and walk back. A sigh left her as she sat down on the bed, and she looked older somehow, her glow diminished somewhat.  
  
"And you?" he asked her in turn.  
  
"Wondering if now would be the time for you to admit that humans have done some good to you as well," she replied with her smile turning... was that tease? It wasn't malice or bitterness, either. "I can't undo what Arthas did or even what Garithos did to you, and there is little I can do for your people, but I hope this reminds you that not everyone who is unlike you is your enemy, Kael'thas."  
  
Kael looked away. Even with the pure mana he was receiving from her now in a steady flow, the flame of the fel still burned brightly within him, and he had to wrestle with the anger it brought with it for some time before he could trust himself to be reasonable once more.  
"You have never been my enemy, Jaina," he reminded her.  
  
"But I've always been human," Jaina noted, sitting down; "I think sometimes you forget that, or at least, I think you sometimes wish you could."  
  
She took his hand in her own again and he let her, surprised at the touch; his eyes lingered upon the touch, the way her fingers were so much smaller than his, so much more delicate. She turned his palm up and traced her thumb over the healing cuts and the touch, although gentle and careful, ached on the broken skin. Like the larger cut on his arm, these too looked irritated and like an infection was brewing within, but their colour was much brighter than the dark of the one she'd cleansed before.  
  
"Could I ask you for something in return for my sacrifice?" she asked then, lifting her ocean blue eyes up to him.  
He felt his breath stilling and could barely swallow, managing only a nod in response.  
"Would you show me now what Quel'Thalas really looks like? If you'd rather try to forget that too, I understand, but my lack of knowledge before has left me curious."  
  
He huffed softly as their hands separated.  
"I would take you there," he told her, "like I offered so many times, but as you are likely aware now, I have been forbidden entry to my own lands and should I bring you there with me I would certainly make enemies with people I would rather confront later on better terms."  
  
"Paint it for me," she said, her head tilting slightly. His heart skipped a beat and he turned his head away. Her mannerisms... she'd never acted this way towards him. It flustered him. He didn't know how to react to it. "Like I painted my vision of it for you before."  
  
"Will you fill that vision with your songbirds, then?" he asked, his gaze now tracing the room as if to measure it, although in reality he was simply avoiding her gaze and hoping against hope that she wouldn't realise it. Of course she would. She knew exactly how he felt about her, and had felt for years; it hadn't been a secret then, and it most certainly wasn't one now.  
  
"I would gladly do so."  
  
"Very well," he said, closing his eyes to recall the Eversong as it had been years ago in its prime. He could almost feel the warmth of that sunlight from his past shine over his skin again, and the glow of the Sunwell burning bright and vivid in the background, always watching over those lands, always loving in its caress. "We can visit my kingdom within the constraints of this room, then, and although it will hardly be the same - I am glad you've finally decided to take me up on my offer."  
  
The breath she let out was heavier than an exhale, perhaps the beginnings of a chuckle, but she said nothing and merely waited. The image within him brewed into a prickling charge over his palms and he let his lips form words, simple spells, near inaudibly before he opened his eyes again and cast his gaze on the walls. On them he unleashed the spells that did away with their surface and turned it into immense depth, depth in which a forest began to bloom - white trunks, old and young, knotted and crooked and straight alike, grew within it. He gestured at them, fingertips as if weaving the energy leaving him as it moved, and thick, blossoming branches grew out of the walls and canopied the ceiling. His gaze lifted there next, and his words opened an abyss where the wooden planks had been before, an abyss that then sparkled into a starlit canvas, an illusion of immense and limitless vastness beyond the golden leaves of the trees hanging heavy and low above the bed. The ground shivered under his gaze, the floorboards creaking as grass grew through them, their arcane roots slithering through the wood and turning it into soil before them. The bed gave a soft whimper as it sunk into the ground from one end, a pit in the naturally flowing earth that sometimes rose and sometimes fell with pits and bumps in its surface. He wanted to go on, wanted to remember every little detail and bring it to life, realising how much he'd longed to be surrounded by these forests again, how much he'd missed home, but a sense of dizziness and weakness was growing within him again and as little as he cared for his own wellbeing - there really wasn't much left to lose there - he couldn't bring himself to exhaust Jaina.  
  
For now, however, she didn't seem too badly drained by his casting: she watched the magical scenery around them slowly settle and become more opaque and natural, and he was watching her, how she drew in the scent that now lingered in the room. The fireplace was now encapsulated within a formation of collapsed rocks, with a firm binding of a tree's roots tying them together. Its smoke puffed into the tree's hollow trunk and vanished from sight. The bed rested upon the grass and the window was a hollow in another tree through which the night now looked pitch black outside - she watched it for some time before lifting her hand and summoning the shape of an owl to sit on the sill. Then she crafted a squirrel; it could seamlessly move between the real room and the depth that only existed to cover the walls, unhindered by the physical boundaries of the space they were now making their own. The way she cast her magic fascinated him. Each mage was different; every one of them summoned their strength differently, their gestures and ways of calling upon their magic unique to the caster. So were the results of their spells. His interpretation of a squirrel would have been different from hers, subtly, perhaps, but distinctively nonetheless. Her birds sang differently from his. The feathers he gave them reflected light in a manner that hers didn't. He crafted his birds as if they were gold, silver and gemstones; she crafted hers more groundedly, their feathers duller but softer-looking and their tails made for flight, not quills. She was closer to earth than he was - what was it she'd said? That some things of value came with the price of decay; she was mortal in a wholly different sense than he was, each day precious to her where he could afford to lose a week or a year of his life without feeling the cost of it in him. She had to feel that when she touched the earth, when she listened to birds sing; everything had to be more precious to her as she knew the limitedness of her time amongst those things, whereas he could always afford to ignore it another day... ever so certain another would come, another day, another year, another century.  
  
The thought was painful to him.   
  
Jaina turned to him slowly when his fingertip touched her wrist. He hadn't realised he'd moved. There was a jolt of energy between them, a disturbance in the magical tie that now bound them together, but he wasn't sure what had caused it - the energy he was drowning in, perhaps? He couldn't shake it; he wanted to touch her more, kiss her, hold her, bury his face in her golden hair and - no. He let his weight fall back down and a stifled chuckle escaped him, disappointed and void of amusement. Before she could question him however, he looked at her again and conjured something of a smile on himself once more.   
  
"You cast so confidently now," he told her quietly, "I can't see a shade of hesitation in you."  
  
"These are simple illusions, Kael; why would I hesitate?"  
  
"Last time I saw you, you were an apprentice. It seems so far removed from what you are now. How much power you have."  
  
She stayed quiet for a moment, perhaps looking for a hidden message in his words. Then she relaxed again.  
"I've learned a lot since you left. I've... been through a lot."  
  
"I know very little of it. Perhaps you'd wish to tell me?"  
  
A smile flickered on her features. She opened her palm and a small white bird startled from her grasp. Neither of them watched it fly and settle on the branches above them, but they heard it sing, a flute-like whistling against the dark of the enchanted night around them.  
  
"I am not an apprentice anymore, Kael - for now, let us leave it at that."  
  
He nodded.  
"Very well."


	10. Under Different Circumstances

* * *

How very strange it was; she could leave him and go back to her life in Theramore, and come back when she had the time to herself, and he would simply be there... and she _trusted_ him to be there. The first dawn she'd had to leave early, and that whole day she hadn't been able to shake the all-consuming concern and worry that something would happen while she was doing her best to appear as nothing had changed, as if she was not hiding secrets, and Theramore and its daily ongoings were the most pressing matters in her mind day and night. She had to act as if she wasn't worried that he would simply not be there when she went back, and that she would be responsible for the next actions he'd take; certainly, when he'd last left, he had hardly committed any unforgivable acts or indeed any harm which she would have to feel responsible for, yet the knowledge of what he was capable of never once lifted from her mind. He'd almost brought the world to its end, unleashed an evil so powerful upon it that there would have been little hope in fighting it had it had its chance to take hold... but all he seemed to do now was sleep or sit in his bed with a book until he slept again. It became a reliable routine: she would leave for Theramore in the dark before daybreak, and she'd be there to greet Pained in the morning, and they would attend the morning's matters together. She would spend time with Tervosh, walk the streets of the blossoming city and smell the damp stench of the marshlands just beyond its walls, and the salt of the sea, and she learned soon that she would still laugh freely with her friends there and feel the frustrations of politics when she had to be locked in her tower to deal with them all the same as she'd done before, as if nothing had changed at all. And then, come nightfall... she'd lock herself in her chambers and wait, wait with a book of her own until the city settled into the lull of nighttime drowsiness, and then she would disappear and re-emerge on that rocky island surrounded by the sea from all sides. The moisture in the air had licked the mansion's bricks smooth, and moss grew freely over the paved path inside. The trees that grew there were twisted and thin and old as the ocean itself yet had none of the size or might to show for it, only their hardiness against the conditions they'd taken root in.  
  
And inside, she soon learned as the days passed... she would feel at home.  
  
One night, quite unexpectedly, Rommath returned soon after she'd made herself a cup of tea in the kitchen. He announced his arrival by all but blasting the doors open, cursing; the ocean wind blew in after him and as Jaina met him in the hall his expression was fiery and - distraught, almost despairing. He gestured violently with his hands and blasted the doors closed behind himself, then promptly sat down on the stairs leading up to the second floor, his hands pressed against his forehead and his whole body tense. Jaina walked up to him and crouched beside him.  
  
"It doesn't look like good news," she spoke, listening to him try and fail to calm his breath.  
  
"No," he barely growled, "No. The news couldn't be worse, not that it's a matter I should talk of here. Rest assured that it is nothing good."  
  
Jaina waited for a moment before sitting down beside him. He was shaking with emotion.  
  
"First he embraces me like a brother," he continued then, speaking as if through his teeth, "then he spits on my face. I have been through this - we have _all_ been through this - yet he doesn't see the error of repeating the same mistakes. The same mistakes! Almost word to word - and I am to do nothing, and say nothing, and simply take his orders like the word of a -"  
  
Rommath's words were cut by a pained groan and he went silent again.  
  
"Matters of the state?" Jaina offered gently.  
  
The elf nodded stiffly. It took him a while to compose himself but once he had, he stood up again and let an ornate backbag slide down his shoulder. He offered it towards Jaina.  
"The supplies and belongings you asked for," he said shortly, "I hope I have been of some assistance. The regent lord wishes to send me away, so there will be little else I can do for either of you here. I must speak with Kael, if you'd let us have a moment."  
  
"Of course."  
Jaina took the bag from him; it was heavy enough, she thought. Rommath nodded at her, and there was a moment during which she knew he wanted to say something more but decided against it. Instead he bowed shortly and left, and Jaina watched him disappear in the servant's corridor. She stood there for some time with the bag which contained more things that belonged to the prince than things she'd requested, but she couldn't now deliver them to their real owner either, given that she'd just promised Rommath a moment alone with him. Ultimately she too turned and went back in the kitchen where she placed the bag on the table and poured herself another cup of tea; she'd worry about sorting their items later.  
  
Some time later she heard footsteps from the hall again. She expected to see Rommath, but instead it was Kael'thas; it was the first time she saw him outside his bedroom, although she was rather sure he'd made use of his time alone in the mansion while she was gone each day. His vision... surprised her. Upright as he was, stopping at the kitchen's doorway, he looked regal once more. Surely it had come at a price, as Jaina herself felt drained and withered and older each day, but he'd made remarkable progress in his recovery: his eyes no longer burned like embers, merely casting the faint greenish glow that Jaina was by now used to seeing in the sin'dorei, as unsettling as it still was to her. Similarly his hair had regained some of its former thickness and strength and it no longer fell straight down along the shape of his skull but rather seemed to grow strong and upright, and... as she watched, he ran his hand through the golden mane. Yes, there was something else involved - it was most certainly effort she was seeing there. An involuntary smile climbed on her and she suppressed it to her scalding hot tea, feeling it bite her lips as she sipped it. And instead of the informal shirt and pants he'd worn for some time, Kael was now wearing his robes again, too; the gold embroidered into them glinted in the candlelight.  
  
"It seems that taking mere days away from the responsibilities of leadership has left me wishing I should never have to bear the burden again," he stated, slipping into the room like a crimson and gold shadow.  
  
Jaina cleared her throat and sat up straighter in her chair.  
"Would you like some tea?" she asked, gesturing at the pot hovering above a conjured blue flame on the table.  
  
Kael'thas shook his head.  
"I'm afraid I might rather use a cup to break it than to drink from it, so I should abstain from even trying. Your offer is kind, Jaina, nonetheless."  
  
"What did he want?"  
  
Kael'thas drew himself a chair and politely tilted his head towards her. Flustered by the gesture, she nodded at him briefly, allowing him to sit down. Like a queen in her own court, she thought. A prince should not be asking for her permission to take a seat.  
  
"I would be most surprised if you didn't already know," he said, with some strain in his voice now. He ran his long nails over the texture of his sleeve before gathering it up and laying it over his lap, then doing the same for the other - a tense, anxious gesture, she realised. "The war in the north demands his attention - and my council, it seems."  
  
The last words came out as a barely-suppressed growl. Kael rested his hands over the table and stared so intently at the tea pot that Jaina was afraid he'd end up exploding it with sheer willpower alone regardless of his resolve not to break anything tonight.  
  
"Well, I have given him what he wanted; my words. And he's left with them, satisfied I hope, not to be seen again. And I shall stay here, licking my wounds while others siege the Icecrown Citadel."  
  
Jaina sipped her tea again, now more out of restlessness than any need to burn herself all over again. She did so regardless, leaving her mouth stinging.  
"How do you think I feel?" she asked, her gaze upon her hands grasping the cup between them. "Ever since - I could feel something changing. I could feel _him_ again. But I have my people to worry about; I can't leave them behind, I can't leave them without my protection. We've sacrificed too much for me to be swept away by... old ghosts. But not a day passes without me thinking of how I should be there, not here, not sitting in my tower negotiating the smaller things. It should be so easy - the Kirin Tor would have me again, I am sure of it. And what would happen to Theramore then? What would happen to the peace I've fought to preserve in my absence?"  
  
She shifted, uncomfortably aware of his gaze on her. She'd never been this open with him before. Things had never before been personal between them, and before these past days, this week, they'd barely ever exchanged more than the necessary pleasantries with one another, leaving any struggles or personal setbacks out of their conversations and only striving to preserve a proper image of themselves to one another. It had always been a very delicate balance to hold, that impression that they got along well while never truly knowing one another at all.  
  
"Perhaps that is why I sit here now," Kael said quietly, "with the only person who could possibly understand the number and depth of the wounds he's inflicted."  
  
Jaina lifted her gaze, slowly but surely, and met his. He chuckled tensely, and she could have sworn the light in his eyes burned brighter like a flame flashing for merely a second or so.  
  
"All that I've done," he breathed out, his eyes on her, "All that I've sacrificed, and it ends with me sending my soldiers into the fight without me. I want nothing more than my fingers around his throat, Jaina, for what he's done to my people, for what he's done to me, and for all the things I do not know that he did to you, although you'd tell me not to extract your vengeance for you and it would only make you look down upon me should I insist. I will spare you the details, but I've imagined his downfall many times before. Now he's stronger than ever, and I? I am weaker than a candle flickering in the wind."  
  
"I am hardly of any position to advice a prince," Jaina replied, "but if I may offer at least a friend's words - think of your people first, Kael. Those who are still here. Not what you are or where you could be but what you can still do for them here, now."  
  
"Nothing," he scoffed, leaning back; his fingers curled, nails digging into the back of his palm. "It is a shame almost as bitter as that I am not able to fight the enemy that took everything from us."  
  
"Certainly there's something."  
  
He looked out of the window towards the sea for a moment, teeth gritted and eyes sharp, but then he moved again to shift his pose on his chair and some tension broke in him.  
"My army was exiled with me by Lor'themar Theron," he said then, "I spoke with him in the hopes of having him accept them back into Silvermoon to serve the sin'dorei as they have done faithfully until now, but he refused. I've now promised them to Rommath instead. They've waited for this moment for years... let them have it, then. If I must die knowing I could never bring justice to my people then at least my people themselves can yet fight for their vengeance. This little I've done; Lord Theron might not welcome them in Silvermoon, but Northrend is not Quel'Thalas. Have him exile them from this coming war's front next - I would like to see him try."  
  
"Do not be so hard on him," Jaina told him gently, "you left him with a great responsibility. After all that's happened, can you blame him for not trusting your word, either? I know little of Lor'themar, but most of what I have heard was good. You chose him for a reason, did you not?"  
  
"And now I would have him remember whose regent he is," Kael stated bitterly in return, "He seems rather content acting like a king."  
  
"Or perhaps he is just a leader tasked with the wellbeing and safety of a people who have suffered greatly, and the last thing he knows about you is that you served the Legion instead. Forgive me, Kael, but I would not be so quick to trust your word either - even if you only spoke to redeem those who served you faithfully. How could he know of their loyalties? Can you be sure yourself? How many of them have had all the time in the world to form their own pacts with your chosen allies? How many of them would still lend an ear to a demon?"  
Jaina took a deep breath.  
"Would you?" she finished then. "Should the Legion seek you out now, whose side would you choose?"  
  
She watched him turn from her again, his eyes seeking the window and staying upon it. His hands were tense again.  
  
"You told me," she prompted, "Kil'jaeden was a mistake. Do not let him tempt you further. He's already had you branded a traitor to your people, I know this is the last thing you ever wanted. He and his Legion are not worth your sacrifices or your loyalty. Come back to us, Kael; they will never be your true allies."  
  
"Our 'true allies' have repeatedly shown themselves to be worth less than nothing," Kael said, his voice even more bitter than before, "We should look for ourselves first and foremost before we think of anyone else ever again; it has never done us any good to be altruistic."  
  
"This is not what your people want."  
  
He nodded.  
"They've shown me as much," he admitted.  
  
"Would you have them burn, too?" she asked, finally gaining his full attention once more.  
  
Kael'thas hesitated for a moment too long for Jaina's liking, but in the end he lowered his gaze back to the table and to his tightened grip of his own hand, and he released it and examined the pits that his nails had left in his skin before speaking.  
"I find it difficult to believe," he said then, slowly and calculatingly, "but I would have sold those who stood against me in an instant - for what was promised to me. It feels as if... I am back to myself now. I can think clearly again."  
  
He lifted his gaze to her and there was concern in it, pure and uncovered, an expression she'd rarely seen upon his features.  
  
"Kil'jaeden may have been stopped, but I doubt he was defeated. I do not think the price for my failure will be easy to pay."  
  
"Then we have common cause once more," Jaina said, her voice a little sharper and more revealing of her disgust than she'd intended, "Even if you'd only serve it to save your own hide."  
  
"That is not what this is about," Kael'thas growled, waving his hand dismissively. "What do I care for my life? You want me to think of a future but I see none for myself. _Forgiveness_ does not come easily to me, but if I don't find my vision a worthy cause to serve then who or what will I follow now that I've been denied entry to the paradise promised?"  
  
The laugh he let out was bitter.  
  
"I do my best to be grateful, Jaina, but it is hard to not wish I had simply died while I still had purpose to serve."  
  
"You call it a purpose, but - and forgive me for saying this - I would rather be dead than ever see myself serving the Legion," Jaina told him severely.  
  
"And yet, you saved me; against my will and now it seems against your own as well."  
  
"I believe... no, I want to believe, I want to believe that you made your choices because you had no others. I want to give you another. I want - desperately - to see the good in you that you showed me when I was younger. The Burning Legion has no place for gentleness, Kael, but you were never anything but towards me. We've had our disagreements and sometimes they have been such in nature that I haven't forgotten them to this day but I always thought you were a good man, if not one without flaws. Even then, I have never believed you evil. So, all that I've heard since... it has broken my heart."  
  
She drew breath and tried to swallow the words before they came, and she considered another sip or a mouthful of her tea that was now less scalding but would have nevertheless served its purpose, but it was all in vain; something in her had given and she couldn't stop herself from speaking now.  
  
"I cannot stand the thought of - what if I've only helped you so you can go back to the demons? What if after all this I was merely a tool in the Legion's plan, a naïve little girl who has too much faith in good prevailing to see her own actions for the betrayal that they were? I fought them on Mount Hyjal, Kael, I saw them firsthand and I watched good, kind and heroic people fall to them, and there is no negotiating with the Legion; they are pure evil. What they want, what they strive for and all they offer is evil, beyond what my kind or your kind or anything of this world is capable of. How could you take anything from them? How could you serve something that I could barely be in the presence of without fearing I'd lose what I am and all hope that I had? Merely witnessing them was enough to render my faith in a better world into a mirage I was ready to cast away. There was no winning against them. All I had was my determination and my heart, which told me beyond any question that I had to fight this force, no matter how hopeless I felt, no matter how impossible their full defeat seemed and still does. I _had_ to stop them before they could have what they want of us, of our world. To hear that someone who was so kind to me, someone who guided me when I was nothing but a vulnerable little girl, someone I'd trusted and cared for had turned to their service - I do not know your reasons and I fear that if I should hear them I would lose the little hope I held onto. When you told me that even you thought you'd made a mistake I felt something lift off my shoulders and I pray that you meant those words, and that you still feel the same."  
  
"I do."  
  
Kael's words were simple and his tone unreadable but firm and steady. He looked up from his hands to Jaina and there was a depth behind his gaze that she wished she could have read or interpreted any which way, but which remained unknown to her, and unspoken.  
  
"Returning home," he continued in that same voice, "has been sobering. To see my lands once more... and even just a little glimpse of my people, and of all that we've rebuilt in my absence - it has been an experience that has changed me. I may be broken and what is left of me may not be of use to many, but I've had something returned to me that was long lost during these years that I spent away, hunting for salvation and revenge yet being the hunted all the while myself. Perhaps the return of Arthas is a test of these changes; I'm afraid I'm hardly strong enough to abstain from bitterness at least, but maybe I can still hold myself back from rushed action. Still - rest assured that without your aid, my eyes would not have been opened, and should I by some miracle still be alive otherwise I would no doubt be crawling on all fours back to Kil'jaeden. Now, I hold no such desire. He may keep his promises of paradise, and I may pay with my blood for this betrayal. Add it onto the list, I say."  
  
A faint smile crossed his lips and the way his eyes had for some time looked so bottomless with some emotion he wasn't letting out ended, returning just the ominous blaze of the fel in him, but... Jaina could have sworn she could see the blue within now. All of a sudden she felt dizzy, however, and averted her gaze to rest her head against her palm; she was almost used to this now, to sometimes needing to quickly sit down and reground herself. Keeping him strong was hard, ceaseless work; as much as she wanted to hide it from others and perhaps especially Kael'thas himself, she was drained, and it was taking its toll on her body as well. She heard him stand up and walk to her, and in the next moment he was pressing the backs of his fingers against her arm, his shape hovering just beside her so close she could feel it even though it wasn't quite touching her.  
  
"Am I worth this sacrifice you're making, Jaina?" he asked, his voice quiet and soft as if to soothe the headache she felt brewing.  
  
"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."  
  
"Of course."  
He knelt before her, seeking her gaze that she refused to grant him - for once, their roles were reversed.  
"Is it our exchange or the past day that has worn you out, or am I simply draining you dry by now? Whichever the case, I doubt you'd tell me. May I ask you for a favour instead?"  
  
"Could I stop you?" Jaina replied, bracing herself and turning to face him. Distantly she wondered if she'd ever seen him from this angle before.  
  
He smiled subtly at her words, bowing his head somewhat jokingly before speaking.  
"I am not weak like I was when Rommath brought me here, nor am I weak like you first found me," he said then, his voice lacking the jest in his gesture, "Give yourself more. Let me starve a little bit. We have to find a balance, and even then you cannot feed me your magic forever."  
  
With those words he pulled himself up from the floor, standing a good height above her once more. He moved her teacup off its saucer, took the silver spoon from the cup and placed it there - Jaina watched him do all this without expression on her face, the brewing headache already pounding within her like pressure even if the pain was still easy enough to ignore. She was so tired... so tired so suddenly. Even though her eyes saw Kael'thas create a slice of cake out of thin air, it took her a very long moment to come to comprehend it. When she finally did she pulled backwards a little, rubbed her forehead and tried to bring the world back into focus. He pushed the plate closer to her and sat down next to her, one chair closer than before.  
  
"Baking was never my strongest suit," he noted then, his voice conversational, "but a little sugar should make you feel better."  
  
Jaina knew he was merely keeping her _there_ , as it had to be quite obvious that she was spacing out; she picked up the spoon and cut into the cake. Even in her dizzied state she couldn't possibly miss the fact that it was amongst the very best slices of cake she'd tasted, combatting even the lack of appetite she was feeling with the wave of sickness that had come over her so suddenly.  
  
"Then I'm quite glad that you didn't bake this," she said, shocked at how drained her own voice sounded even as she looked at him with a little twinkle in her eyes, "because magic was _always_ amongst your strongest."  
  
He smiled politely and nodded at her in gratitude for her words.  
"I'm glad to hear it's not dreadful."  
  
She shook her head.  
  
"Jaina, please; let yourself rest tonight," he said then pleadingly. "I feel strong enough, and you can't keep doing this forever."  
  
"Will you promise me I don't have to find you half-dead in my hallway tonight, then?" she asked in return, attempting to make light of how horrifying that encounter had been but failing. Instead, she picked another piece of cake on her spoon and drowned the cold in her veins to it. She could feel the rushing of magic within it and that combined with all that it was to her physical body was indeed making her feel much, much better already.  
  
Kael's smile was crooked and he tilted his head slightly before speaking.  
"Where would I go?"  
  
"Back to Lor'themar," she pointed out instantly, "Or boarding a ship to Northrend."  
  
"Is that a lack of trust I hear in your voice? Have I ever gone back on a promise I made to you?"  
  
"Then promise me," Jaina prompted.  
  
He sighed.  
"I will not cause any trouble," he said, "or leave this place for anything until you feel better."  
  
"And you will tell me if you need me."  
  
"And I will tell you should I need anything."  
  
She nodded.  
"Very well, then."

*

Kael'thas could feel her absence from the very moment she was gone, not as far away as usual but merely upstairs in the mansion, locked away behind the master bedroom's heavy-set door. It started as an emptiness, but as the night grew older it turned into an ache that kept him from sleeping. He'd have to grow used to it, he feared; it reminded him starkly of the first nights after what had transpired at the Sunwell years ago. Like starving to death, but no food could sate the hunger.  
  
She'd given him a bag before returning upstairs. He picked throught it and was surprised to find his own belongings within: some clothes, some books and a journal, and in a carefully enclosed box... he didn't dare to open it. He could feel the mooncrystals within without looking, he knew what it was well enough and how much worse opening it would make his aches and cravings. Instead, he took the box with him to the garden; the servant's entry door was locked but the key had been hanging quite innocently by the cleaning equipment nearby. He'd pocketed it a couple days ago for his personal use, to get some fresh air, although the winds here were saturated with moisture and salt and smelled of seaweed. It was worse at night when the mist gathered, but there was a certain charm to it that had drawn him outside some days when he'd woken up too early or too late or simply for a moment's time, wanting to clear his head or get the blood flowing in his limbs. He'd almost grown to like this place, as desolate and cold as it was; it had an orchard that resembled an old, scarcely growing forest, and the sharp rocks stood firm like arrowheads pointing at the night sky. The stars were out tonight, he could see them even through the lingering mist, twinkling against the darkness. When had he last taken a moment to appreciate them? To appreciate his own smallness against that view, instead of focusing on power - power that was ultimately meaningless, he'd learned that painful lesson by now. _Power_ hadn't helped him when he'd faced an army in his keep, and it hadn't made him strong enough to become the force of destruction he'd promised himself to be. It hadn't even helped him best Arthas. It wasn't weakness, either: if he'd learned one thing about himself the past years, it was that he was stronger than he'd given himself credit for, and more adaptable, more cunning and much harder to kill than he'd feared. He'd become somewhat remorseless, too, although perhaps it was more a matter of not allowing himself to feel remorse than of not feeling it at all. Those thoughts had come upon him like a plague the moment he'd woken up here. Things had changed. The grief was now a part of who he was, as certainly as the dependence that throbbed in his veins. He'd accepted the latter, if grudgingly; perhaps he never should have. Maybe it was the acceptance of it that had made him turn on himself.  
  
He crouched in the dewy grass. The flowers that had grown here once had wilted and mixed with the wild flora, and nature reigned freely in the flowerbeds now. The fountain sprinkled water on him, on his face and hands and his hair and shoulders, but he didn't mind it much. He'd felt worse things than the touch of pure water on his skin lately. Silently he spread his palm over the ground and let his magic spiral freely from him, pushing apart the earth until a hole had formed. He took time to widen it appropriately, to deepen it and square it out until it looked like a grave for a very small body, and then he took the box in his hands again and placed it at the bottom of that grave. Nothing would keep it from emanating magic into its surroundings, but what in this place didn't? The fountain itself was magical. Once buried, with grass covering the ground where he'd disturbed it and with flowers both wilted and blooming casting their shadows on the unmarked tomb, who would think to dig there? He closed his eyes and rested his hand over the pit before sweeping across it to lay the earth back in it. It was a _terrible_ hiding place. He was surrounded by ocean, wouldn't one rather cast the stones there, so deep that none might ever find them? No - the ocean was a good hiding place if one was looking for something obvious. Artifacts had repeatedly been hidden and stolen and simply uncovered from the ocean, it was nothing new. Here, in a flowerbed, next to a magical fountain that would hopefully mislead those looking for the source of an arcane disturbance, nobody would think to find the corrupt stones that had once powered the great barrier of Ban'dinoriel. Maybe he would come back for them at a different time, when he felt more confident and more prepared, but for now, he wanted them nowhere near himself. Of course one of them was still missing - stolen - but that only served to ensure that it would stay away from him, and for now, that thought made him content enough.  
  
Steps from behind him caused him to jump involuntarily. When he turned, half-way up from the ground and a fire gripped in his palm ready to be cast, he saw Jaina in the pale light cast from the lanterns illuminating the walls of the house. She looked at him curiously as she lifted her own hand and cast an icy swirl upon it.  
  
"Looking for a rematch?" she asked playfully.  
  
He let the flames in his hand die out.  
"I don't know who I was expecting," he said with a small sigh. "I thought you were asleep."  
  
"I tried - it didn't work. Then I saw you here through my window. What are you burying in my garden?"  
  
Kael'thas cast a grim look towards the disturbed earth, but then he let his shoulders relax and allowed that relaxation to spread into his body. He found it hard to convince himself of safety now, even when he couldn't quite imagine what danger would lurk here, much less one that him and Jaina Proudmoore could not fight off together.  
"My past," he replied after a little while, not quite finding the words for what he wanted to say. "The symbols of my rule and downfall alike: the remaining mooncrystals that destroyed the Sunwell as it used to be. I'll take them with me when I leave if you'd rather not have them here, but for now I can't stand them in my vicinity. Better in the earth than in my possession."  
  
Jaina looked down at the pit with a closed expression, one that seemed sad to Kael, and she stayed that way for a while, perhaps to consider the importance of the matter or simply lost in her thoughts.  
  
"Rommath returned them to you?" she asked then.  
  
"I assume that they were... recovered, and left in his possession. They are powerful magical objects belonging to the kingdom of Quel'Thalas, therefore he would be the best person to receive them. It seems he did not want them now any more than he wanted them when they were given to me, so he thought it best to return them. Of course, it also makes it harder for me to accuse him of stealing them, although I wish he would have."  
  
Their eyes met and Kael'thas let himself smile at her. Knowing he was jesting encouraged her to let out a small chuckle too.  
  
"I think," she said then, some amusement lingering in her voice, "you might be right: let them be buried here for now. As I said, I'd rather have you as far away from any corrupt magic as possible."  
  
She yawned softly behind her hand, and Kael felt the remaining tension in his body breaking. The night, he realised now that he'd completed his task, was warmer than the past ones; it had been chilly for days, but tonight, the end of summer still lingered over the island. He stepped aside and walked a small distance behind the fountain, settling on a bench there. It was wet with dew like most other things in the garden, and perhaps from the sprays of the fountain as well, but he didn't mind it - his robes were resistant enough to keep him dry there. Jaina followed him but didn't sit down. Instead, she let her body collide with the fountain's edge and for a time they both stayed quiet, simply watching the night around them, experiencing it, listening to the silence that was still filled with noise. The ocean was restlessly crashing against the rocks and the shoreline. Wind was blowing, its invisible shape clattering and whistling as it surrounded the mansion, but it was above them, and down there at ground level nothing much moved.  
  
"Would you like a rematch?" Jaina asked then, her eyes suddenly sharp and back on Kael'thas. She had a curious expression - it reminded him of how she'd been in Dalaran. Like this was an experiment. He frowned.  
  
"I'm not sure..." he started, his voice fading before he cleared it and started over. "I'm not sure what you mean."  
  
Her smile widened and she pushed herself off the fountain, walking in front of him instead. She tilted her head and offered him her hand to pull him up - he allowed her to, although it didn't make him any less confused.  
  
"When did you last test your wits against another mage in a less than serious duel, Kael'thas? It seems to me that it's been quite a long time since you last let yourself relax. Come now, burn me to a crisp; I'm inviting you."  
  
"Even if I agreed, we don't have a healer for -"  
  
"I won't need a healer," Jaina stated cockily, cutting him off. There was still a sharpness to her eyes, a cunning he hadn't seen in them before, but the way she spoke and the way she acted all spoke of careful excitement and lighthearted challenge, nothing that would have had him particularly concerned. "And after all, didn't you mock my powers for being just water? What am I going to do, drench you? Are you scared?"  
  
He squinted at her. With hesitant steps he circled her before moving back from her; her falsely mocking expression turned for a grin and her lifted chin lowered a little as she caught up to his intent. She looked brilliant, as if shining a light against the darkness surrounding them. The flames of the lanterns around them burned a little brighter now as she lifted her hand to call the fire in them, and he turned his palm up for the sky and summoned an arcane essence like an imitation of the sun to float just above his turned hand, then cast it to shine above them and between them, lighting the area between the benches and the fountain.  
  
"I'm only scared of thoroughly embarrassing you," he stated when the distance between them was long enough to leave them all but facing against one another, as if in real combat. There was no jest in his voice, but Jaina's grin widened nevertheless.  
  
"The little girl in me quivers at the thought," she replied, "she would have never challenged an archmage! But I'm all grown up now, Kael; I think you'll find me a harder bite to swallow than you expect."  
  
He suppressed the smile that was making its way to his lips, instead cocking his head up and throwing aside the hair that was sticking to his cheekbone and veiling his eyes.  
"Show me, then. What can you do against my fire?"  
  
She cast so fast it took him by surprise even though he'd thought he'd been prepared. A flurry of snow spiralled between them before all but blasting its way through towards him with flakes sharp as glass but small as fine-ground dust. He deflected with a swing of his hand, bright embers sparking from his palm where he'd held his flame ready - it died now to nothing but the mist of gold it left behind, yet as soon as his gesture was over it burned bright again, fully ablast in his grip at a moment's notice. He could feel the little prickling of the ice against his skin although he'd turned most of it aside, and a small approving huff escaped him, as unintentional as it was. This was taking him back to their Dalaran days, but he cherished that feeling for only a fleeting second before muttering a sequence of words in Thalassian, the language in which he expressed his magic the best, and released a wave of fire between them. It travelled the overgrown stones of the garden's path like a bright ghost, its roots licking the dew off the earth where it touched it but leaving no trace or trail in its wake, and Jaina covered herself with a splash of water like an ocean's wave that clashed with the heat, hissed angrily, and together their elements evaporated into the night sky as fine mist that was soon picked up and carried away by the breeze back towards the ocean.  
  
Even a spell that simple made the ache within Kael worse, but he couldn't find himself caring much, not yet. All he could see was Jaina's shape, her golden hair only illuminated further by their magical lights and their spellwork, and the focus on her features that had replaced her smile, and he let out a soft breath through his parted lips, reminding himself to stay in the moment and not let it or her carve a weak point in his defenses. She cast again; this time it was a rain of needles, like rainfall turned to ice. He could feel one against his cheekbone and knew it had broken skin before he'd steadied himself and summoned a shield of mana to keep himself covered from it.  
  
"As beautiful as ice is," he said, wiping off the blood that was gathering over the scratch, "it doesn't fare so well against my power."  
  
"And as bright as your fire burns," she replied calmly, "it still can't get through water."  
  
"We'll see."  
  
Kael let the spell off his tongue like a whisper in a child's ear; a flame swirled in his hand and turned into a twisting orb ready to be cast, and he threw it towards her effortlessly and so fast that now she struggled to react. He'd done it a thousand times, and as it passed between them he could see the faces of people who hadn't lived to see the flames die down. He'd taken down shambling corpses that way mere days ago, and years in the past... he'd cast these same fires in the grand hall of Tempest Keep, too. He'd watched men and women burn alive engulfed by them. He steadied himself and stood up straighter, feeling a distant sharp pain in his backbone somewhere that echoed the craving within him as it rejected his usage of the magic he had left in him. In reality it was... a pleasant feeling, much like when he'd created those birds so soon after waking up - simply casting for casting's sake, enjoying the power he'd practiced and honed and researched like fine art. It felt so natural to him, like breathing or indeed seeing and feeling... inseparable from who he was.  
  
Jaina dragged her hand up through the air from down upwards, creating a solid spike of ice in front of herself, splitting her own image in half. The shield that was born from that ice was flimsy and weak, and Kael'thas observed it neutrally, calculatingly. His fire met the hastily crafted shield with a hiss and broke through, and he could see Jaina bow down to avoid the flame even as he had already formed another in his hands. It followed the previous one's route only a small distance underneath it, but on halfway between them it met a sharp icicle, melting it into nothing but vanishing in the impact's aftermath itself. Jaina had regained her footing, but she looked different now - was it concern in her expression? Doubt? He enjoyed it in some manner. She was questioning him, measuring his intent and the strength he was using against her. Let her, he thought. It struck within him a different kind of an ache, one beside his heart that he hadn't felt in a while. It made him feel like a person again, it made him feel grounded and _alive_. With a wide gesture Jaina cast a frozen shield over her as his wave brought fire raining towards her; like her ice storm had been nothing but prickling needles, his rain of fire was barely embers, but each would have felt like a nasty burn if it had touched her skin before she'd reacted. His fingertip touched the scratch on his face again. The blood had already dried.  
  
He saw her lips moving - the next thing he knew there was a frost growing over his feet that was all but rooting him to the ground. As he glanced down at it, she was already shifting place; she flickered out of sight, dispersing into a cascade of gold and then manifesting beyond the lights somewhere, and Kael cast fire down at his own feet to allow himself the room to move at least enough to turn to face her again. Yes, ice could do that; it could hinder, it could slow down. Fire wasn't so good at that, he had to admit it, but... it revealed much in the dark, and ice did not. His magic illuminated the garden, now a magnificent mist of fire that grew from the earth and stayed to linger mid-air for some time before giving out against the night's dark. She stood firmly against it, arcane magic glowing in both hands, waiting for him to make his move.  
  
She'd grown strong, Kael thought; still, she wasn't the veteran he was.  
  
Even as she turned to shield herself from a whip of fire he was already casting another spell. A bright-burning orb of fire grew above his palm, large enough in size to light the whole area around him. It caught her eye in an instant, but in that same instant he'd already cast it towards her, and there was no time for her to react or put up a shield that could have stopped it - it would have landed, inevitably, regardless of circumstances.  
  
For a moment, it felt as if time stopped. Kael could see her eyes meet his across the lit path of the fire. He smiled at her, wondering if she had the time to take it in before she disappeared behind the brilliant explosion of fire that resulted from his magic finding its target - it all but burst into a thousand bright embers before her, so close she could feel their heat even as she took a step backwards, and he could almost _hear_ her exhale as she found herself watching the rain of light burn out before her, entirely unharmed and unburned by the power that had a second earlier appeared as if it could have engulfed her whole.  
  
He stepped forwards, the ice under his foot now water on the paved ground.  
  
"Which of us will be declared the winner?" he asked in a polite tone that still left the undertone of his amusement clear, "In a real battle I have no doubt you would have quenched the flames soon after they touched you and who knows what would have happened then, but like you said... I do not strike in earnest against you, and therefore I cannot win. Meanwhile you have drawn blood, and as we have no healer I am afraid that means that I am permanently injured."  
  
Jaina turned her eyes to him and something in her demeanour changed once more. Her posture relaxed and she shook her head, chuckling.  
"How about we call it a draw?" she asked, "I did very well - for an apprentice."  
  
"You are no longer an apprentice before me," Kael offered politely, "If this had been a life or death situation, I am sure you'd lose your disadvantage against me and use spells that would give me a hard time to counter you as effectively. I thank you for your consideration, and for giving me a chance to win against you as if these were our better days still."  
  
His voice retained its joking tone, but there was also a submisseveness to it once more - it was becoming a theme in the way he spoke to her, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. It sneaked there so effortlessly, perhaps betraying things he wasn't so keen to admit to himself; how much he was willing to give in to her, and how much he wished to please her. Such... mundane weaknesses. The mundanity itself gave him great relief. It, too, made him feel more alive.  
  
Jaina sighed.  
"You're right," she said then, "I didn't give you a fair fight. I don't want to think about what would happen if we'd met under different circumstances."  
  
"Another Sundering, perhaps; there are still continents for previously unseen magic to shatter."  
  
His words got a laugh out of her. Her fingertips traced his shoulder and she gave him a playful push before turning, her hand trailing along the fountain's shape as she started walking back towards the mansion. Before she reached the door back in she turned, walking a couple steps backwards before her hand could reach the wooden frame behind her and she stopped to address him again.  
  
"The sun will rise in a few short hours, so I should return to Theramore - my friends have keen eyes and I don't want them knowing I don't sleep my nights where they think I do. Before I leave, however..."  
  
Her magic flowed into him again, the rush of it so welcome and so pleasant that Kael'thas had to let his head down and his eyes close for a moment. He nodded then, forcing himself out of the daze to look at her again.  
  
"Thank you, Jaina. As always, I will remember this."  
  
She nodded.  
"Get some sleep, Kael. Your past can stay buried in my garden."


	11. Torrents

* * *

The marshland surrounding Theramore was hardly the place for a pleasant walk, but the shoreline served well for such a purpose. It was there Jaina took herself now, Pained at her side; the night elf took long strides beside her, looking like she would have rather marched very fast and purposefully, but Jaina was here to breathe the fresh seaside air outside the growing town’s walls and to forget, merely _forget_ , that she had responsibilities inside and outside her tower in its heart. As always, she couldn’t quite escape all of the reminders. Pained was one, but she was also a dear companion, one whose presence didn’t bother Jaina. She hated the feeling that she was keeping secrets from her, but Pained was a woman of honour and duty before anything else and Jaina didn’t quite have the words to explain the situation she’d tangled herself up in on any formal or official level yet. As such they walked in silence, or each taking turns reporting their pressing thoughts to the other: Jaina would talk of the townsfolk, of the trade and the delays in supplies they’d struggled with recently, and Pained would recount to her the matters regarding the townsguard and recent reports from the scouts.

The beachline separated itself from the dark grey of the marsh with pale golden sands. Turtles strolled here and there, large enough that a small woman could have easily grabbed onto one’s shell and surfed into the ocean on its back, and some crabs wandered amongst them in search for food between the stones the ocean’s currents were pushing forwards. Salt water, seaweed... the constant chattering of birds and insects from the bushes and undergrowth and murky short and stubby trees. Jaina wanted to close her eyes, and for some time her steps slowed down even from before, and Pained let out a short sigh, stopping beside her.

”May I ask you a question?” she spoke then.

”Of course you may. As always,” Jaina replied immediately, granting her a smile as she picked up her pace. ”Unless you intend to ask why I’m not in a hurry, in which case I will not answer, and might even stop once again just to spite you.”

She could see the night elf suppressing a smile.

”No,” Pained replied, ”I know by now that taking a walk with you will be a test of my patience regardless of what I say, so by accompanying you I have already accepted the fact.”

Jaina smiled. As short and serious as Pained was, she had a certain way of speaking to those she respected and those she held affection for, and Jaina knew from her tone that she was saying this with fondness. She’d come out of obligation, of course, but also because she’d simply wanted to; they often spent time together this way, taking the opportunity to share their thoughts and Theramore’s news and the people’s concerns with one another in peace and quiet, away from the confined spaces. Even more so, Pained as a night elf loved the outdoors - she was like her people in that respect, always much more eager to be out in the open amongst nature and with the wind on her skin than holed up somewhere like the mages she spent her time with were prone to do.

”Then what is it?” Jaina prompted her.

Pained stroked back her hair and her eyes narrowed. She aimed them towards the sea, restless and grey on this day as its foamy waves lapped at the shoreline, and thought her words through before speaking them.

”It’s not unusual for you to be tired,” she said, fixing her eyes upon Jaina now. ”In fact, I see you exhausted more often than I’d like most days, and I cannot blame you, with all that we’ve already discussed weighing on your shoulders. And still I’ve noticed that you seem even more tired these days, and you have dark shadows under your eyes, and you can barely focus on your work or keep your attention in the meetings you’ve had the past week. You use your magic much less than you usually do, and most concerningly, you seem prone to disappearing completely.”

Jaina sighed. So much for keeping secrets from the one specifically tasked to keep an eye on her.

”I’m still waiting for your question, dear friend.”

Pained threw her shoulder back and stretched her arm, a sign that she wanted to keep peace between them; she didn’t wish to come across too firm or too accusatory, or even too unyielding, although Jaina wasn’t sure how she’d weasel out of this one.

”Is there something I should know about?” Pained finally asked.

”No,” Jaina said simply; ”but I appreciate your concern, as always.”

”I was afraid you’d answer this way. It makes it much harder for me to ensure your safety, Jaina.”

”I don’t wish to make your task harder for you,” Jaina assured her, ”yet I promise you that I am quite well and fine. If something should change, of course, you will be the first to know.”

Pained shook her head slightly in disappointment, but she didn’t argue it. It wasn’t exactly unheard of for Jaina to keep secrets, although she had to admit that usually those secrets weren’t quite so... heavy to bear. There was one she’d kept for a while now, one that she truly hoped that Pained had no suspicion of, but her involvement with Kael’thas was different and even heavier a crime than associating with the Horde. She simply had nothing to defend herself with. She knew enough of Kael’s crimes to understand that sympathy and understanding from others would be very limited should their association and her aid come to light, and... if she couldn’t quite reason it well enough to convince herself first and foremost of the righteousness of her judgement here, then how could she ever come to explain it to Pained? It was too early. Somehow she hoped that one day Kael’thas would be there to take some of the burden upon his own shoulders, and the spotlight would move away from her. The previous night, and his progress throughout the past week, had left Jaina hopeful. So much of his past brightness was returning to her that she could recognise him already, even though he still appeared malnourished and pale. His steps had lightened, and he no longer seemed a shattered shadow of himself; he’d regained his good-natured smiles and the softness he’d always held for her, with the bitterness and anger more and more absent from their interactions each day. Still, Pained was right... he was draining her, and she was very, very tired. She’d barely slept the entire week, as sleep simply would not come to her. She had little appetite, or had too much of it when she’d had some sleep and woke up starving in the morning, and even then eating often made her feel ill. She felt constantly under the weather, weakened and unfocused, and that state was now becoming her new normal as she’d recently noted with a hollow feeling inside her.

Was that how the blood elves had felt after the Sunwell had been destroyed? Was this a taste of that suffering they’d been through, and which had driven Kael’thas to such extremes? If it was, then Jaina could finally sympathise, however little, with his actions. She wondered how long her good will alone would keep her body upright, without even speaking of keeping her act straight.

An unexpected sensation brought Jaina back from her thoughts. It was a lingering tension within her that all but raised the fine hair on her skin like a chill, and an acrid smell soon followed, bitter like the smell of smoke. Pained had stopped, and so did she now - she tried to catch the elf’s eyes, but she had her gaze sharp upon the marshes and didn’t move. A shudder rushed through Jaina’s spine when she realised Pained had her hand on her weapon’s handle, ready to act on a moment’s notice.

”Something’s wrong,” the night elf said quietly.

”I can sense it. We should go back.”

She nodded at Jaina’s words, but even as she took steps back over the path they’d followed there, she didn’t turn to face that direction. She kept her eyes where they’d been, and Jaina followed suit; her gaze travelled more, looking for anything out of place in their surroundings or any movement or sign of magic, but she was fearing the worst. She’d felt this way before. She’d felt a corruption like she could now sense here, on Mount Hyjal... it was a feeling she hoped had only resurfaced now as it sometimes did when she recalled those memories, but her gut was telling her otherwise. No, this felt more urgent, more present and more real than that which she could still feel when she got lost in her own thoughts. This felt as if it was here, now... as if it was slowly overcoming her. Crawling closer.

”Stand behind me, Lady Proudmoore.”

She did so, instinctively and without giving it a second thought. She wasn’t hiding, merely taking a defensive position - Pained knew as well as she did that she could hold her own, but they fought best together, and a mage should never be left directly in the line of fire if there was only someone who could distract the enemy from the caster first. That was what Pained excelled at. She was a swift, merciless force of nature that would busy any incoming foe long enough for Jaina to support the attack with her magic. The combined force of the night elf’s close combat skills and Jaina’s near unparalledly powerful spellwork were a force to be reckoned with. Ice burned within Jaina’s grasp, but even as she waited, ever backing the way they’d come in the hopes of getting out before the unseen foe would have them in line of sight, her thoughts strayed and recalled the night before, and her playful duel with Kael’thas.

She’d had a moment of doubt then, too. She’d played fair, she thought; she’d never intended to hurt him. Yet... for a time, she hadn’t been so sure if he’d felt the same way. His power was still terrifying to her, and it grew every day. His fire never burned any less intensely than at full force, and he’d come at her so hard that... she’d questioned it, questioned him, questioned his intentions. When she’d realised she would not be able to deflect his last attack and all she’d seen was the fire that was so rapidly approaching her, she’d prepared to feel the pain, too. She’d accepted it, almost, accepted that he’d never be the elf she’d once known, and that her stupid faith had cost her everything. Even then she’d decided not to counteract. She’d... let him kill her, in a sense, although for the most part it had been her stubborn refusal to believe he’d betray her that way. And he hadn’t, of course; she’d realised it as soon as the fire that she’d expected to burn her had all but exploded before her eyes into a rainfall of sparks and embers as beautiful as fireflies against the dark night, but the fact that she’d been right had only left her with more time to face the questions she’d had to ask herself then.

He’d told her so sweetly that a real battle between the two of them would not end that way, and that she would give him a much harder time; he’d treated her as an even match. It was true that she had never fought as if she’d fought for her life, she’d only given him the faintest glimpse at the powers she held at her command. Of course she’d never cast a full blizzard at him - not unless he was giving her his real fire, not his fireworks. She wouldn’t shield herself with the morning’s dew if he was trying to scorch her flesh from her bones, she’d shield herself with a wall of ice and shatter it into a thousand spikes to impale him where he stood. Or would she? If she would then why, why had she not reacted when she’d realised the fire that was coming for her might be real, that it might truly burn her, truly hurt her, and that she could no longer tell if he’d cast it to injure or even kill her, or if it was simply for show as he’d promised? Had she chosen to trust his word, or simply submitted to die by his hand? Which one was it?

The marshland glowed an ominous green light. It pierced through the bushes and the smell of smoke grew starker, stronger and more choking. Pained’s nostrils flared, and Jaina wished dearly she could close her own entirely - the smell was so bitter it was burning as she breathed it. And then... they could both see them. The brush parted and then burned as two fel infernals pushed out of the woods. Their bodies were shattered rock and fire, and they spread with them an aura of dread and hopelessness that Jaina felt to her bones. The ice in her hands grew brighter, its shape solidifying from mere snowflakes into something larger, something firmer; icicles sparkled in and out of existence in her grasp even as Pained pushed her backwards.

”Demons,” she heard the night elf mutter to herself. ”Of course.”

’Of course’ was not the conclusion Jaina had come to, but she didn’t have time to think about it further before the infernals had already began to charge. The ground shook under their weight and the wet marshland sizzled and hissed in contact with their cursed green fire, and they howled as they came at them, but before they could reach them, Pained had already leaped to face them in turn. Her movements were swift as the wind as she lashed at them, and in her wake came Jaina’s frost - it slowed the infernals down, and Pained used the opportunity to damage them to her best ability before retreating again. The demons groaned and moaned, breaking free of the ice growing upon them as their fires blazed brighter. Jaina roared, she could hear her own voice echo distantly in her ears as she spun around, creating a veil of raging snow and ice around her and then casting it with all her might towards the incoming enemy. Pained was well out of the way by the time the icicles pierced into the forms of the demons, anticipating Jaina’s move and seamlessly adapting her own attack to follow it.

They battled a blazed trail across the beach, the infernals pressing at them and pushing them further and further back until Jaina was standing in the sea. It lapped at her feet and her ankles sending shivers up her spine, but it was a welcome, grounding feeling that she’d learned to love from her early childhood, and as if to spite the invaders she stepped further into the waters and let the waves strengthen her magic. She raised them, made them into ice, and cast them up in the sky; then she let them rain down, with grains of crystallized salt scattering onto her as the swiftly formed ice rejected it. The blizzard hit one of the infernals down, and even as it struggled to get back upright its body started to shatter - the fel bonds between each rock that made its body, like an elemental but twisted and wrong, started to break apart, ultimately leaving behind a pile of burnt stone and nothing else.

The other one stopped before Jaina, but the fire it cast cut at Pained, not her. It stopped the night elf on her tracks and she had to reroute her attack, but all the infernal could do was delay her - stopping her simply wasn’t an option. She struck her weapon at the infernal’s core, and the demon let out a deafening roar that splintered as its body did, finally dying as the stones of its body shattered into shards and scattered upon the shore. Pained was panting, and Jaina realised she was just as out of breath: it was as if she only now could feel her body again, but only for a brief moment before a foreboding understanding hit her.

It didn’t make sense for the demons to be here, or anywhere near Theramore... unless it was because of her. And they would only be after her now because of one reason.

”Kael,” she breathed out, straightening herself and turning to face Theramore with both fear and determination blazing in her eyes.

Pained turned to her questioningly, but Jaina shook her head.

”Return to Theramore at once,” she commanded her in a firm voice, ”Have more guards at the ready to defend the city and send scouts out in case there are more of these... _things_ about. I have to leave, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

”I assume you will not tell me where you are going, either.”

Jaina gave her a tense smile.

”I have a suspicion as to why we were set upon by demons here of all places. I hope both that I am right and wrong at once; I do not know which answer I’d prefer, as if there were good reasons to face demons right outside our home.”

Pained sighed and shook her head.

”I will obey,” she told her then. ”Be safe, my lady.”

”Of course.”

*

The ocean was restless even when Jaina appeared on the rocky island. She hurried down the path towards the carved dark wood doors, softened by age and the sea winds. A lone gull sat atop one of the two stone lions guarding the entrance, and its sharp eyes peered at the mage as she rushed between the statues. Soon after it let out a piercing cry, its voice surfacing even through the sounds of waves surrounding them.

The heavy doors gave way to a small push of magic, the shield she’d cast on them giving way to familiar entry. She was practically running now as she crossed the hall and entered the servant’s quarters, then, without knocking, made her way into the guest bedroom there. It was empty, if not for the signs of life within - a leatherback, gold-decorated journal sat face down on the bed amongst rustled sheets, a closed inkwell by its side and a pen set on top of it. The ink on the pen’s tip was dry, however, and the fireplace had grown cold. Jaina turned her back to the bed and the golden-leaved, white-barked tree that had all but grown around its head end, and she traced her steps back to the hall on her way towards the next corridor opposite the one she’d just left, the one leading to the kitchen where she’d spent so much time as of late. Her heart was pounding even as she made her way through, the mansion creaking around her in the wind gusting from the open seas, and then - relief flooded her like warm water. She stopped for just one breath before moving on again, and Kael’thas, startled by her sudden appearance, received the full weight of her momentum only halfway up from his chair. He let out a soft breath when she wrapped her arms around him and held him for a moment before it all came back to her and she all but stood back, firm and tense and formal again but with her cheeks flaring.

”And what, if I may ask, have I done to deserve such an eager greeting?” Kael asked her, his voice baffled but pleased, and the lack of judgement in it made Jaina relax somewhat again.

The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee. The aroma lingered heavy in the air and as Jaina looked around she spotted an open book on the table beside one of her ornate cups filled with still-steaming conjured coffee and cream. Nothing, absolutely nothing here spoke of a struggle; she felt as if she’d walked into a different universe altogether, not just a different location. She sighed in relief, fixing her eyes on him again. She did owe him an explanation now.

”It’s not good news, I’m afraid,” she told him and gestured back towards the table to have him retake his seat, which he did.

She pulled up a chair beside him but turned it around to face him as well, and once she was seated, she lifted her foot to rest on the support between the chair’s legs, then leaned her elbow over her raised knee. Hardly a pose to address a prince in, but she was still too restless to reassume her official manners. It didn’t feel like she needed them anymore, either; Kael’thas shifted in his chair to meet her face to face, and while his feet stayed on the floor, he was no longer sitting correctly either.

”Tell me,” he prompted.

Even as he said it he’d already brought in Jaina’s cup she’d left on the table the night before, and with a gesture and a short glance at it, combined with a barely mouthed word, he’d cleaned it up and refilled it with sweet-scented tea. He offered it to her and she nodded gratefully, her cold hands wrapping around the cup as she received it.

”I fear that our secret has been found out,” she began, ”by the worst possible party. I came here from Theramore, or the beach only a rock’s throw away from its walls, right after defeating not one but two demons with a dear friend of mine who was, luckily, accompanying me at the time. Theramore might not be surrounded by safe meadows and open fields and it is not uncommon to get in a fight outside its walls, and our patrols find all sorts of beasts and bandits roaming the marshland, but demons are not something one would ever consider a threat there. I don’t have a choice but to think that they were set upon me in specific - and I can only think of one reason that would bring them to me now.”

Kael’s fingers wrapped around the ear of his cup and he sipped it, but his eyes never left Jaina’s. As he lay the cup back down on the table he nodded slowly, and only then did he avert his gaze, turning it to the window that was now rain-stained from a brewing storm they couldn’t quite hear beyond the sound of the waves it was stirring already.

”You should have never been involved in this,” he spoke quietly, ”I would have never - if it had been up to me, you wouldn’t be here.”

”If it was up to you,” Jaina reminded him bitterly, ”No, I wouldn’t be here, or anywhere at all, as I would have no doubt been burnt to ashes by a whole army of demons that you’d promised to let loose on us.”

He glanced at her and a brief, rather surprised smile crossed his lips.

”I feel as if I should apologise once again,” he said, ”but somehow I do not think apologies will ever be enough to cover that.”

Jaina shook her head.

”No,” she replied, ”Not quite, no.”

”Nevertheless, we now share a common problem,” he continued. ”Of course, my understanding is that you have not made yourself popular with the Burning Legion before my involvement either -”

”You could say that.”

”- but as you stated yourself, the timing... seems strangely convenient for it to be a coincidence. So it’s safe to say that I’ve brought you into danger, unwittingly, once more - even after all but defecting the loyalties I forged in my past that would have had me be the catalyst to your renewed conflict with the Legion regardless.”

He bowed his head to her in submission.

”Now, ironically, we must conclude that it is exactly my betrayal to my former master that has you in danger. They cannot reach me, but they have somehow found out that you are the key to getting to me. Who else knows of this? Rommath would never speak, not under torture or to save his life; he is far too loyal and would rather die for me than put me in danger. He has my full confidence, even if we’ve ended up on different sides. He would not give up my location to the Legion. Lor’themar Theron, maybe - Kil’jaeden? Never.”

Jaina sipped her tea. It was so sweet, but not overly so; it strengthened her in an instant and brought warmth to her limbs. She felt that warmth rush to her cheekbones and she closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the taste upon her tongue and lips.

”Two elves, the names of whom I don’t know. One was a ranger, another a priest.”

”The ranger is no doubt Aelindas Dawnlight, informally known as ’Nightstrider’; a commanding officer promoted to my Sunblades after the setback at Tempest Keep despite his injuries that prevented him from relocating with us to Quel’Danas. I recognised him at Magister’s Terrace. Despite his decision to shoot arrows into my body at my weakest moment, I am inclined to think it would not be him who’s betrayed me now. I don’t know who the priest could be. Perhaps she has spoken.”

Kael’thas leaned his weight to the side, slid his elbow onto the table and rested his chin over his hand, facing the window again. Jaina watched him get lost in thought - it was as if he physically left the kitchen and went somewhere else inside his mind. It made her smile, despite the gnawing hollowness his words had left within her. She’d seen this so many times that even now it brought her back to Dalaran’s library and she could have sworn she could still smell the ancient tomes, the paper-thin pages and the dust trapped between them, warmed by sunlight pouring in through the thick glass windows. She felt her heart flutter and the sensation both made a little breath escape her as well as caused her to narrow her eyes. Did she really miss those times that bad that remembering them here made her feel anxious? She followed his gaze out of the window and watched the raindrops form little streams down its pane. It was now coming down hard enough that they could hear it, the little pitterpatter of drops on the roof and against the windows and frames and walls around them.

The mansion creaked against the wind again.

”They’ll keep coming for you,” Kael’thas said then, his eyes turning to her. ”You must be protected when they do.”

”I have my bodyguard and my other company. I spend most of my time in a well-guarded tower, surrounded by military generals and officers as well as important diplomats and high-ranking visitors from other places. I am not particularly afraid of a demonic ambush, but I am afraid of what will happen to you should they find out about this place. You are strong, but are you strong enough for a real battle?”

Kael cocked his head non-committally.

”Perhaps I am not ready for a full-blown siege of this house yet,” he said, ”but in a fight of a smaller scale I would bet on my chances - especially with your aid.”

She felt a small tug at the energy that was now as always flowing between them, and it made her feel at ease.

”It does call into question what I can do if I truly am being pursued for my betrayal. Perhaps Kil’jaeden simply wishes to talk with me. Surely it can’t reflect well upon me to be in hiding. He’ll find a way to me, sooner or later.”

Jaina bristled.

”I won’t have you communicating with him again,” she said.

He shook his head.

”Nor do I have any interest in doing so. What good would it do?” He chuckled wearily. ”Kil’jaeden is a master mindreader. I could tell him anything I want - I am not a bad liar when it comes down to it - but he would be able to read my heart and my heart is not with him now. Even if he’d be inclined to forgive me for my failure, which I doubt as I have proven a great disappointment to him, he would hardly forgive me for leaving his side so eagerly, and with such ease... He would be able to read my affection for you and all the desperation with which I cling to the prospect of your forgiveness and know that his promises would fall on deaf ears over it. He would see in an instant how I felt about my kingdom when I arrived there once purified of Delrissa’s corruption, and know that I’ve been reminded of my true cause and that I would be hard-pressed to let go of it again. I am not a promising opportunity for him anymore. I am a failed investment at best, and a dangerous traitor at worst. It seems a reoccurring theme in my life, perhaps deservedly so. No, Jaina; I have no reason or desire to speak with Kil’jaeden or with any of his messengers. But how do I avoid it? How do you avoid becoming involved in this any more than you already are?”

”He’s weakened,” Jaina spoke, her voice hardened and certain although she wasn’t sure where such emotion was stemming from. ”He spent a lot of energy and resources at the Sunwell, and was defeated and sent back to where he came from. It will take time for him to find another way through, and if we have any luck on our side then, we can fight him back again. His minions, and the minions of others like him, have been here since the first invasion and we’ve found ways to deal with them - they are not nearly many enough to overwhelm us, and I doubt they’ll put their full effort into hunting you down. Perhaps we can simply exhaust them, show them that you are more trouble than you’re worth.”

”And Kil’jaeden will simply forget about me? Jaina, forgive me, but I doubt that very much.”

Jaina shook her head.

”No, he will not. But he’s not here and if I may have my way he will never be here or walk this earth or have another chance to even attempt it again. All you have to do is outlive the patience of his followers - let them find another traitor to chase, another cause to lose. Meanwhile, we will fight them.”

She took a deep breath and once again her heart was racing, fast and filled with anxiety and anticipation, a deep need to have her voice be heard now, to have her words matter. She put her soul into them as she spoke, her eyes fixed upon the green glow of his and the faint tint of blue that was pushing through it.

”I told you this when you woke up, Kael, but now I tell you again - you have to choose a side. I wish more than anything that you’ll choose mine. Fight them with me, Kael’thas; fight the Legion and its corruption and its evil for all it’s done to you, for all you’ve seen first-hand. Join me. I would stand side by side with you against Kil’jaeden himself if it came to that and you know I am true to my word and there is nothing in this world that could make me turn from it, nothing that could ever convince me my cause is not worth living and dying for. I will never stop fighting for it. There is nothing I would rather have than a good old friend, a powerful mage whom I respected and who once helped me when I was a mere fledgling spellcaster, who was always so kind to me and who always, always believed in me, fighting this force by my side. I don’t know what it’ll take to redeem you in the eyes of others but all you need to do for me is simply to swear that should it ever come down to it, you would stand by me as you know I would stand by you.”

He turned away. At first her heart sank at the sight of it, but it was as soon as she’d felt that hope within her shrink that she noticed the tears in his eyes, and suddenly she understood why he’d turned away, and why he still turned, all the way until he could face his cup and have his golden hair veil the sight of his face. He lifted his gaze from it soon and aimed it forwards, upwards, as if to hide the impact her words had had on him but of course he had to know she’d noticed; she still gave him at least the illusion of ignorance, if that helped him gather himself without further embarrasment.

”How do you find such kindness in you, Jaina?” he asked then, quietly and still without facing her. ”How do you have so much forgiveness in you, despite all that’s been done to you?”

She wasn’t sure how much of it he knew, or what he was really referring to: himself or Arthas or any of the other blows dealt to her over the years, other times she’d cast her good faith in others or spent her love on them to have them turn from her and commit unspeakable acts leaving her wishing she could have been stronger, strong enough to save them. It wasn’t about her, or how much good she had in her. She was deeply flawed and often weak, and it was all too familiar to her that the only thing she could do for others was to cry for them or with them instead of helping, as her reach was short and there was simply too much evil that went beyond her ability to counter or prevent.

Even now, it wasn’t out of any good quality of hers that she was reaching out to him. She merely desperately wanted him to not turn from her again, to remember himself after all this time, so that there would never be a time she’d have to feel her heart sink at the news of what had transpired in his life again - was that not selfish? Jaina wasn’t sure she could take watching him break again. She’d seen it once and when he’d been brought here at the very end of that path she’d watched him set upon, broken and barely alive, something in her had shattered at the sight.

She shook her head. His tears, held back and now a mere memory in her mind but still present in his tension and stiffness, made her tear up, too. She dragged her chair closer, its legs scraping loudly against the tiled floor, and wrapped her arms around him again this time with full intent and having first considered it before acting on the thought. He was warm, thin even through his robes but still so very alive, against her. She wished he’d move but even as she thought it she could feel him relaxing and his breathing growing more even, and finally he turned for her, his hands moving over her back and bringing her closer to him. She could feel him rest his face against her hair, his cheek and the tip of his nose pressing into it, and she shuddered with a restrained sob and brought her face into his robes, the scent of which was a mixture of the warmth of the fireplace in his bedroom as well as some lingering scent of a place she’d never visited. She couldn’t tell if it was a perfume or a flower that was already fading from the fabric, but it was still present enough for her to smell it there, and it took her away from the room, allowed her to forget the storm brewing about them. And underneath it... she could now smell his scent, too; it had none of the smell of electricity left to it, of magic and corruption, but it was one she realised she’d once known quite well but always associated with her studies, her books and her spell practice. Had it always been his? Had he been that present in her Dalaran years that his very scent had become part of her memory of it? It made her smile and she sobbed again.

”Forgive me,” she breathed against him, ”I didn’t mean to break apart like this.”

He held her tighter and shook his head; she could feel it against hers.

”I believe I’ve long owed you an opportunity to break apart,” he spoke, his breath warm through her hair. ”Did you not earn it by taking the brunt of my grief when I had no one else to spill it to?”

As if she’d only sought for permission to let it happen, her tears now flowed freely. She tried her best to keep her sobs inaudible and at least retain some dignity for herself, but all she wanted was to stay there and let herself fall into pieces until all the fear, stress and horror of her past had been let out and she could feel solid again, not like a shattered glass barely holding itself together, only waiting for a single piece to splinter off so that the whole could finally collapse. Was this it? Was this her collapsing? Her fingertips dug into the silken fabric of Kael’s robes and she closed her eyes, simultaneously embarrassed and relieved. He held her firmly, his palms warm against her back with one finger slowly caressing her over her spine and shoulder blade, and it was the sheer held-togetherness of him now that felt as if it was only further sending her down into the pit of whatever had overcome her, like she’d finally found a place she didn’t have to fear she’d have to stop and collect herself at a moment’s notice. He was patient, and although he had no words for her his silence was soothing in itself - there was no judgement or irritation in it, merely stillness, waiting, for her to be ready again.

Once the wave had washed over, Jaina regained her sense of shame; her eyes stung and she knew they’d be red when she’d pull away from him, and somehow, it seemed like a better idea to simply not do that, to not show him her tear-stained face and her red-splotched skin. She’d always made sure to present only her best to him. This was not it, and breaking the habit seemed like too much for her to bear: she feared that if she’d let him see her this way, she’d simply break down again and have to hide in his robes forever.

Finally his hands moved up to her shoulders and he pushed her back, not away as much as so that he could look at her. Embarrasment burned at her face but she returned his gaze as it searched for something in her eyes and from her expression.

”I swear to you,” he said quietly but firmly, his finger landing under her chin and holding her head up to him, ”I will stand by you and fight this enemy with you.”

An emotion washed over her, so strong that it all but blinded her. She couldn’t reason with herself or truly give it a moment’s thought before she’d already made her move, but where she caught herself next was back against him with no distance remaining, with her lips pressed over his and his breath a halted blow against the pit underneath her nose. Her hand rushed into his hair with a sense of despair, like she had to hold onto him to convince herself not to think about it, to not let herself question why and how she’d ended up here. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t let it matter. She’d deal with it later, once she was up, once she was walking briskly across the hall, once she was out, once she was in Theramore - she’d think of it later, when she could handle herself again and reason her way out of it. For now, all she wanted to know was the way his lips parted for her so fearfully, and how he responded to her but like he was stealing something away from her; he was kissing her back like a thief taking something not belonging to him, overcome with guilt for his actions, and it made her want him, as there was vulnerability in that act unlike anything she’d ever felt from him before. His hand left her chin and held her face instead, and the other joined it; he held her in the kiss and she could feel the touch of his nails against the sensitive skin of her ears, and she found herself smiling into the kiss, and that realisation made her nip at his lower lip as if to punish him for making this so much worse than it already was. She’d partially left her chair by now and it wasn’t a matter of much more than one final push to be on him, and she brought her hand to his neck and the other still gripped his hair and it was soft now, so smooth between her fingers, and she wanted to pull it and pull his head back and have more of him but she had to restrain herself - she’d already gone much too far to live with herself after this.

He tasted of his coffee, of lingering spices and cream. Her lips gathered that taste from him and her nose brushed his, feeling the sharp end of it poke into her soft cheek, and then the kiss broke and she pressed her face against his and breathed like she’d been submerged for hours, finally tasting the caress of cold air in her lungs again. She didn’t want to look at him, and he was still and breathed tensely and his hands moved back to her shoulders where he held her still, and she pressed her mouth against his cheek and nuzzled her nose into his face and breathed in that limited space, eyes closed, her body throbbing.

*

Fear was perhaps the defining emotion within Kael’thas as he sat there with Jaina’s weight on him. He was afraid that she’d slip away from him, either by simply standing up now and leaving, taking this moment with her forever, or that she would shimmer away into nothing and he’d wake up and all of it had never happened. He wasn’t sure which would have been worse, to lose it now that he’d felt it, or to never have had it at all and simply knowing that what he’d imagined was still not the reality of her and what they would be together. Her body was so warm and so light over him, her weight and heat resting over his legs while she still clung to him, her hand stuck in his tangled hair and the other’s fingertips and nails curved into the pit of his neck. He held her by her shoulders perhaps too tightly, perhaps hard enough to bruise, but he was so scared she would move and take this from him or break it any other way, there were thousands of words and gestures she could have made to undo the spell on him now, and he couldn’t bear the thought of any of them coming true so he simply held her, his heart thundering, beating so loud and so fast that he felt dizzy for it. Or was it her that made him dizzy? He couldn’t bring himself to believe this. More than anything he wanted to resume kissing her, to taste her over and over again and feel her mouth on his like she really wanted him; there had been no force or pretense in the way she’d kissed him. _She_ had kissed him. He hadn’t done a thing to force her into it, he hadn’t expected it or even thought of it, and then she’d... his breath trembled as he drew it in. He could feel her pulse in her thighs pressed against his.

Kael closed his eyes and let his face push up against hers, and she returned the gesture, and simply feeling that movement be reciprocated and not rejected made him feel pain - whatever it was that caused it was too strong to be handled otherwise, it simply filled him quicker than he could process it and overwhelmed him and made him feel like crying out loud. He wanted her so much, and she was right there, but could he touch her? Did he have her permission? His lips pressed against her skin, implying a kiss that he didn’t dare to give her. She shivered, her fist in his hair tightening, and he ran his hands down her shoulders and along the sleeves of her shirt, his touch firm and tight over her arms, feeling each curve of her bone and muscle underneath until he reached her elbows. From there he let his hands back up, brushing over the wrinkled cloth and upon the round bone of her shoulders, and she turned her head for him when he sought to kiss her down on her jaw and on the soft skin between the bone and her ear. Her body bent for him as he ran his hands down and over onto her back again and then, barely daring that far, over her waist. A small sigh escaped her and she leaned into him, her chest pressing against his and her arm wrapping around his shoulders.

She was intoxicating. She made him weak like poison. He couldn’t resist her, the feel of her was more tempting than any wine he’d ever tasted - he would have chosen her over a burst of arcane at his darkest moment without having to think about it at all. Nothing, surely, could match how he felt with her body against his, with her breath over his ear, steady and deep. She smelled of ocean winds and autumn leaves, of candle smoke and magic; her hair was soft and full and it tickled his face and he wanted to bury his nose in it again but didn’t dare to move so boldly. He had so many questions yet he feared that speaking one or even just a word or her name would have broken this moment and cause it to shatter into nothing, so all he did was hold her and breathe her in, trying to imprint all of her little details into his memory: her warmth, scent and her weight and the shape of her body as it lingered against his. And then, feeling as if he had to push his luck, he spoke her name - quietly, softly, as nothing but a breath against her skin. It made her shiver again and she hid her face in his hair, and he could feel her breath against his neck now, a sensation that made a gasp catch in his throat. He swallowed it, eyes pressing firmly closed, and then he moved to face her again, his nose bumping against hers and brushing past it as he sought out her lips. Their skin was so soft, and they were parted; he caught onto them with his and kissed her, then kissed her again, first on the plump curve of their middle and then on the corner of her mouth, lingering there to feel the pit twitch at the feel of him. Her nose pressed against his face and the tip of her tongue touched her lip, barely brushing against Kael’s as well; each of her small movements and all the little things she did with her body and mouth were like whiplashes against him, that much he wanted to jolt and jump at each one, and yet he couldn’t get enough of them, couldn’t get enough of her and how good she felt to hold and touch.

”Kael,” she spoke his name in return, not with her voice but with a hoarse little breath. The tone of it was questioning, as if she was tasting his name and how it felt on her lips, and he kissed it off her to chase off the tension in his body that gathered once more - what if she would find it reprehensible, unpleasant? What if she would recoil at facing who he was... when he wasn’t the one she loved? Who was she thinking of - him, or perhaps...

He brushed his hand through her hair and let his fingertips linger amongst the gold, desperately wanting to believe that it was him whom she wanted to be kissing and that he wasn’t some replacement or a mistake she was making in the heat of the moment. But why would she want him now? Had she not told him, explicitly, that she had never loved him and would never love him, not now or before or ever, mere _days_ ago? It was bewildering to even consider that something had changed her mind since. He had nothing to offer her now. Surely, if he hadn’t appealed to her when he’d still had a future, and when his body hadn’t been marred and tainted, and when he wasn’t a despised exile... he couldn’t hold a candle to the man she’d once rejected. How could she possibly want him now?

She stirred on him, her lips catching a hold of his, and then she was kissing him again, renewing the kisses he’d planted on her lips and then left lingering there. Jaina pushed up against him and leaned into him, her breath hitching as she tasted him. Her scent was so strong, and he was all but enveloped in it, and it was pleasant and smooth and warm like she was. Her body was moving closer and up on his thighs, and he held her tighter again, bringing her as close as she wanted to come until they were hip to hip and stomach to stomach and chest to chest and mouth to mouth and the chair underneath them creaked dangerously. That creak made her back off and laugh, and her cheeks burned fiercely with red blush, and he was out of breath and his body felt like it was entirely composed of nerves with each one wired to the extreme just to soak in the feel of her; she slid off of him completely and back on her legs, but he noticed that they were shaking. He didn’t doubt that his were, too.

Jaina hesitated a moment, then opened her mouth but barely a sound came out - she closed it soon after and tilted her head with a conflicted expression, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Kael stood up after her and indeed he could barely believe how hard it was simply to make his knees hold his weight, but he managed it, perhaps not as gracefully as he would have liked but he did stay upright nonetheless on the first try. He shook his head at her and picked her hand instead, bowing to kiss the back of her palm.

”Perhaps I am mistaken,” he spoke then, and his voice betrayed just how utterly breathless he was yet he found it difficult to care much, ”but if you need time... for the right words, you may have it. I don’t expect you to explain.”

”I don’t care for the right words,” Jaina replied, ”I would love to have any at all. I don’t have them, you’re right. I want to say I don’t know - that I don’t know what I did, or what happened, but I know very well and I... would you give me the time to think upon it instead?”

”You can have all of it,” Kael told her even if his voice was conflicted, ”I merely hope that it will not convince you that you did anything wrong. I wish - I wish for this, at least, to be a memory you can look back upon fondly. I hope it will never be a bitter one for you. I know it will never be that for me.”

”Memory?” Jaina breathed, ”I’ve barely stopped living it and you’re speaking as if it’s long gone already.”

”Forgive me, then; I do not wish for you to think I want anything of you that you are not prepared and willing to give me. Even having this... to remember, to know that I’ve lived it and had you in my arms once, is more than I could have ever hoped for. Jaina, you are beautiful and all that I ever dreamed of, but you’ve made it clear to me that these feelings are mine alone and I may have never made my peace with it but at least I’ve accepted it. If you’ve changed your mind... I do not dare to voice it. It would pain me too much if you should still think otherwise, even after today.”

”Give me time,” she said, her fingers tracing his hand without picking it up.

He nodded.


	12. Flame's Embrace

* * *

  
The ocean was steel grey and its waves crowned with tiaras of foam, and it rushed angrily at the sharp stones of the island. Jaina shivered as the wind caught her, and although she stayed dry in the rain because she’d shielded herself against it, she couldn’t fight the full cold of the storm.

She loved the sea. She loved watching it in all its different moods, the good ones and the bad ones, and even now she could imagine how it would feel to be on a ship and sail those waves, feel them rock the very ground beneath her feet, to be small and quite alone in the vast waters. It also held bittersweetness to it - had it not buried her loved ones in its embrace? Had it not done so to thousands who also had daughters and sisters, wives and sons and brothers? Its depths were immense and unthinkable. She longed to be one with it now, if only to relieve some of the weight and pressure of all the things she had to think of on her own. She wanted the waves to carry her, eyes closed, until it had washed out the white pearls of clarity from within the murk of her doubts and confusion. Of course, the sea would not think for her. It had better things to do.

She hugged her knees and planted her chin between them, eyes searching the waves and mind buzzing. Her fingers had busied themselves braiding her hair and it rested heavy over her shoulder now, not entirely safe from the sprays of water although mostly dry like the rest of her was. She could still feel Kael’s fingers in it, and perhaps that was one of the reasons she’d braided it to begin with, to replace those ghosts of touches on her scalp and neck with the real and very present tug and pressure of bound hair. The braid was loose at the end as she had nothing to tie it with, and so it kept opening little by little, and each time it did she would braid it again simply to have something to do.

Yes... she could feel him still, and it was not that kind of a lingering sensation that she wanted to be rid of entirely, but it burned her and it made her shift with tension and anxiety and something she didn’t want to name, and none of it made any sense so she needed it to stop until she’d brought some reason back into her mind with which she could process it. She couldn’t blame him, and perhaps that was the worst thing of all; she’d kissed him and not the other way around, and even his hesitation in response had only encouraged her and made her push at him harder. That was not who she was or what she’d wanted! She could have shaken herself. If she’d had the power to go back in time like the bronze dragonflight did, she could have asked herself from last week or, she was sure, from just last night whether she’d ever want to tangle her fingers in Kael’s hair and kiss him like she was starving for it and her past self would have laughed before shutting her down.

Or would she? She closed her eyes and imagined herself there, last night, in her bedchambers. Her past self was seated on the bed in her pale gown, picking at her nails, and she approached her with question in her eyes. She didn’t want to speak it, but the question was ringing loudly in her mind so of course she didn’t have to: her past self lifted her golden head and looked at her and her brows knit together, and then she shook her head, quietly, and returned to picking at her nails.

Jaina opened her eyes. Maybe it hadn’t been _that_ simple last night, either. Last week maybe... but not last night. What had changed? Why did she no longer feel that immense distance between herself and him that had made her so uneasy when he’d courted her before? She’d always found him... perhaps not charming like she’d always found Arthas to be, but charismatic and well-spoken and beautiful, and yet those traits had never been enough to win her over or at all ease her into his company. He’d felt like a teacher to her, someone she’d deeply admired yet felt distanced from, as if he and she lived in different worlds separated by the years he’d spent in this one beyond those she’d shared with him. He had hardly grown younger since, but somehow Jaina felt that she’d grown older much more rapidly than he had, as if the gap she’d once felt between them was no longer so vast and unbridgeable. When she’d last spoken to him before all of this he’d called her a child, a child with a child’s heart, and it had rang true then. She no longer felt like a child, even next to him, and he no longer felt so hopelessly beyond and above her as he once had. She still respected him, but she respected him in a much more manageable manner: it didn’t feel like he was a completely different being to her, only one she’d slowly come to understand better and found not all too unlike herself in the end.

Her heart ached. Underneath all of that, these years and these changes that she now felt so starkly had not made him love her any less, he’d made that much clear. He’d learned to speak of it much more openly too - perhaps he’d felt safe to do so, knowing that she would never reciprocate, and that she already knew either way so he might as well be honest about how he felt in her company. Maybe it had been a way for him to come to terms with it and her rejection, but she’d found herself more at peace when it was no longer unspoken between them. He’d made it very clear to her before leaving Dalaran, so of course he couldn’t have taken it back, yet... his openness had taught her not to be afraid of what he felt. If speaking of it had eased his mind, then it unwittingly had done so for her as well: it no longer threatened her or made her feel tense in his presence, but it was as ordinary between them as their new routine had become, as much a part of this new way they’d come together as the magical bond she’d allowed between them was. Even now she could feel him at the other end of it, and she wondered how she’d left him feeling. He had to be as confused as she was, but the wait had to be much more torturous for him, and Jaina wished she could have offered him better words of comfort before leaving and retiring to solitude to sort herself and her thoughts out, but... there were no easy answers, and she couldn’t promise him anything yet. She simply couldn’t soothe the uncertainty he felt, as she felt it all the same, and as such whatever he was doing now, she hoped he didn’t feel too badly for where she’d put them.

Something in the horizon pulled Jaina back from her thoughts. She lifted her gaze from the steely waves and looked around to spot what it was exactly that had stirred her, but even against the silvery sky it was very easy to fix her eyes upon the approaching shape - a flame, she thought with confusion. A bright orb of fire burning like the sun at the core and dragging crimson at its tail as it moved across the stormy skies... towards her, she realised. It wasn’t descending into the ocean but moving towards her, fast but not as if cast or thrown, but as if floating, flying. She staggered on her feet and felt magic surge to her palms, tingling at her fingertips ready to be called upon. Was it demonic? Had they already located this island, perhaps... somehow traced her teleportation spell that had taken her there? What was it?

It grew larger and larger in size, and strangely enough the closer it got the more it appeared to have multiple limbs of fire that never dissipated or changed place or shape. It almost... it almost looked like a bird.

Was it a phoenix?

Jaina swallowed, her hands fisting as she waited for it to come closer, unsure what she was to do if... or when, when it would reach her. Defend herself? Accept it? Welcome it as a guest? The enormous elemental didn’t change course and the storm that it had breached to come here did not at all seem to bother it. Only when it was so close she could for certain judge it to be what she could hardly believe did she notice that it appeared to have a rider, a man sitting on its flaming back as if the fire did not burn him. Perhaps it didn’t; the elemental must have chosen him to ride it, but ride it he did.

It was the ranger. Jaina’s breath escaped her as a barely audible gasp, and a mighty wave crashed against the rock she was standing on at that moment, sending sea water across her body and her face and mouth, and she realised she’d dispelled her shield by forgetting she had to uphold it in the first place in favour of regarding her visitor. She made way on the shore for the bird to land but it hardly did so - instead the blood elf, Aelindas, slid off its back and landed with cat-like ease on the grass beside her, and the bird ascended back into the sky with a roar of fire in its wake.

”Forgive the grand entrance, Lady Proudmoore,” the ranger said, sounding out of breath, ”I’ve been flying around this area for the better half of the day trying to find this island. I have bad news - hopefully you’ll have better ones to share.”

His eyes followed the bird, and Jaina, as much as she would have liked to remain polite and watch the man addressing her, found herself doing the same.

”This is Al’ar,” Aelindas spoke then, ”Its ashes were left to me for safekeeping after what happened in the Outland. I was hoping I could return it to my prince, to whom it rightfully belongs.”

Jaina nodded although she was feeling stunned and speechless. Her eyes finally diverted from the still-ascending bird and moved onto Aelindas, who was regarding her with anxiety. She then realised he had no idea what had transpired since he’d brought Kael’thas here nearly half a month ago, and she gathered herself to speak.

”I’m sure he’ll be grateful,” she said, finding no other way to at least convey to Aelindas that _his prince_ was still alive.

The ranger chuckled.

”Or I’ll find myself burning alive at your doorstep,” he said with a half-way shrug, but he sounded decidedly relieved nonetheless. ”Either way, it was not mine to keep and I had no reliable beast to carry me in this weather, so I put the two together.”

His expression turned more serious again and his green eyes flashed, much like Jaina had seen Kael’s flashing, as if the fel in them burned more vigorously from the intensity of thought behind it.

”My name is Aelindas Nightstrider,” he said then with a small bow, ”and I’m afraid there’s no use for my anonymity any longer as we’ve been exposed by my companion, as much as it pains me to say.”

Jaina nodded.

”Kael’thas recognised you,” she said, ”He knows who you are.”

”Ah, well, that both delights me greatly and concerns me, as it seems that while I am worthy of remembering in specific, there has also been some reason to _remember_ me - in specific.”

The vibrant yet incredibly sarcastic tone the elf spoke in put Jaina at ease and had her smiling unwittingly. She’d only ever had most serious conversations with him before, brief and hurried as they’d been, and her impression of him had been very stern and stiff and official. The way he was speaking now, perhaps out of exhaustion, brought him down to earth in her eyes.

She lifted her gaze up at the sky and the phoenix that was now circling the island like a bird of prey on the hunt, and the rain whipped at her skin, reminding her that they were indeed standing in a storm - she looked back at him and shaded her eyes with her hand to shield them from the rain.

”Would you like to speak with him directly?” she asked over the raging waves, ”We know very little of this breach of silence you speak of, but I’m sure Kael’thas would rather receive your word for it than my rendition of what you spoke.”

He nodded.

”It would be a great honour, my lady.”

*

Aelindas Nightstrider was hardly a stranger to fear and anxiety. Serving under Kael’thas Sunstrider had more often than not led him into circumstances he’d never expected to survive, and he’d made his peace with death years ago, a fact that might have broken his father’s heart had he survived the Scourge, and it would have definitely made his mother weep, same factors applied. He was a young elf still, only two decades into his prime, and neither of his parents would have wished to see him so content to die before he’d had the chance to live, but he’d always considered it an honour to give his life in the service of the Sunstrider prince for the good of all of sin’dorei, of those who had lived where his family had not. His mother, like himself, had been a ranger: she would have understood, even if she would have hated herself for it. His father had been a leatherworker, and his loyalty was above all to his family - his ghost had to even now wail in grief for his son’s choices, and Aelindas didn’t expect him to rest anytime soon.

Still, walking up the wet stone pathway to the mansion he’d visited only once before filled him with dread unlike anything he’d felt in his life. He’d never been high ranking enough to gain audience to Kael’thas, and there had never been any reason for them to exchange words in any other circumstances. He’d seen the prince many times enough, and he’d served close to him in many battles, but it was different to be one of many faces or a blade and a bow amongst a hundred, three hundred others in near vicinity - it granted him immunity, invisibility. It was impossible to describe the degree of loyalty he felt towards the prince but he’d never wished for recognition for it, or wanted to gain rank until he would be seen as an elf of any particular importance. He was quite content submitting to his role further away, and politics were simply an awful matter he rather avoided entirely: he was a soldier, a commander and a tactician, not a damn diplomat or an advisor, and he preferred it that way. Thus it had shocked him when he’d discovered himself in possession of the prince’s personal property upon his dismissal from active service as a Sunfury ranger commander. He’d expected to be healed into whatever condition was passable to allow him to die slowly enough to be useful to the crown one last time at Quel’Danas, not to be sent away on a special mission as a guard to something as precious as Al’ar, the phoenix god that Kael’thas had loved so dearly, and which he’d always kept close by and treasured above many, if not most, other things. They were both wounded - following the raid to Tempest Keep, Aelindas had injuries that would never fully heal and as such he’d been rendered all but useless to the cause as a soldier. Al’ar, on the other hand... when the phoenix had passed to him, it had been nothing but a pouchful of light ashes, ashes that were hot to touch but otherwise rather unassuming and most definitely unimpressive. Within days, however, those ashes had birthed a baby bird, a bird that was bright like an ember and had a voice that resembled what Aelindas thought it would sound like to be close to the sun: it was an ear-piercing, broken sound that was both bottomless and shallow like breaking metal ringing against the roar of thunder. From that petty yet utterly terrifying little thing had soon grown a restless young raptor with a beak that both stung and burned at once, and from that youth, a beast so beautiful that regarding it still rendered Aelindas breathless.

Keep it safe, he’d been told. And he’d done so, to his best ability. Meanwhile, he’d worried for its owner. At first he’d thought, like most others, that Kael’thas had fallen in the raid. No - it was worse than that. The demons had gotten to him first, just before death had. In some twisted way Aelindas had been grateful to the priestess, Delrissa, for saving the prince’s life. Not soon after, not once he’d learned what had transpired since. He’d been in contact with a healer priest still actively serving with the Sunblade, who’d never had personal access to Kael’thas herself but knew enough about his condition to be most concerned - she’d shared her concerns with Aelindas, and together they’d formed a desperate and truly a _stupid_ plan to save what they could if and when defeat or at least the death of the prince himself would seem inevitable. It required Aelindas to abandon the safety of Nagrand where he’d relocated after receiving Al’ar, and he’d made his way back to Azeroth somehow still in one piece only to put himself in even more danger by falsely joining the ranks of the Shattered Sun Offensive. He’d fought tooth and nail to prove himself worthy of getting where he needed to be, and then... the rest was history.

Somehow now that it had all come to pass he found himself _shaking_ at the very thought of facing Kael’thas. By the Sunwell, Aelindas had shot an arrow into him! What else could he have done? He’d had eyes on him all around. He’d had to play his part. He’d had to do something to look like he wasn’t there simply to watch and wait for an opportunity to steal what was left of the prince once the rest of them had their eyes diverted far enough from the stage of bloodshed. And still, better elves - better rangers - had been burned to death for less, and certainly no ranger or any other common soldier had lived long enough to aim their weapons at the Sunstrider prince. Aelindas had hoped he’d be facing this one last consequence of his actions together with Maleena Sunshield, the priest who had convinced him to join her mad plan, but she was dead by the Legion’s hand and he was alone. She’d sent him here with her last breath, and he knew he still had her blood on him from where he’d found her: it had spilled from her lungs when she’d spoken, her words barely recognisable through the sounds of her choking.

Now instead of walking beside her he was walking with Lady Jaina Proudmoore, a human girl he knew next to nothing about beyond that she’d studied in Dalaran at the time that Kael’thas had stayed there, and that some kind of an unlikely friendship had developed between the two of them then. He’d learned that she was kind and loyal and undoubtedly very determined; she was still there, was she not, and Kael’thas was alive enough to receive his audience.

The thought made Aelindas grimace unwittingly as Jaina lifted her hand and arcane magic collided with a previously invisible shield locking the doors, melting it away and allowing them access inside. He almost wished it would have rejected her and he could have simply bowed apologetically, climbed back onto the firebird and made his exit instantly into the raging storm that had already drenched him to the bone. What did he have to lose by leaving? Even as he stepped inside the hall he recognised the stupidity of accepting the invitation. He had nothing to lose by leaving. Perhaps Lady Proudmoore would have provided him with a portal if he’d asked nicely enough. No, instead of doing that he was walking to an almost certain death - he was a traitor, was he not? _He’d shot_ _a damn arrow_ _into Kael’thas Sunstrider_.

”What should be done with the phoenix?” Jaina asked him politely as the doors closed behind them, but Aelindas found himself startled by the question.

”It will stay here,” he stated, trying to mask his discomfort, ”It can sense this is where he is, and won’t leave his side again until commanded.”

Jaina nodded. Then her eyes moved past him and fixed upon something behind him and Aelindas turned, the fine hair on the back of his neck standing upright. He dropped instantly into a deep bow at the sight of Kael’thas - the prince had stopped in the doorway, one hand leaning onto the frame with his crimson robes bright and spotless once more and his hair long and tended-to, and his eyes... Aelindas found it hard to breathe as he forced his spine to straighten. He’d die standing upright, at least. Yes; the prince’s eyes were sharp and aimed at him.

Jaina stepped aside. She stopped in front of the stairway leaving most of the hall to the two of them and Kael’thas stirred from the corridor he’d barely exited, moving in long but cautious strides towards Aelindas who had to fight the urge to back off. Was it guilt that he felt, or sheer terror? He wanted to glance at Jaina as if to ask her whether she’d be content with Kael’thas turning him into a black mark on her floors, but ultimately he had no idea whose mansion this was to begin with or whether it mattered to Jaina, and most importantly, he felt like he couldn’t and shouldn’t escape the piercing look that Kael’thas had aimed at him.

She’d told him she wasn’t a healer, but... the prince looked like himself again. He was not only walking, but his skin and hair had regained colour and his posture and movements were graceful and powerful at once, and the way he regarded Aelindas before him spoke of deep focus uninterrupted by distractions and outerior forces alike. Most importantly the gem that had pierced his chest was nowhere to be seen; this was the prince Aelindas had seen command and plot his way through the impossible, and whatever Jaina had done - it had worked. Aelindas had expected to find him still in bed and still... weakened, driven to insanity by the demonic magic cast on him, but the elf who now stopped in front of him and all but towered over him had no sign of weakness in him and his features burned bright with sharp intelligence and calculative judgement.

”My prince,” Aelindas spoke, his head bowing again in utter submission, ”I am one of your loyal Sunblades, ranger commander Aelindas Nightstrider, tasked with the safekeeping of your beloved phoenix Al’ar, and -”

”The man responsible for bringing me here,” Kael’thas finished for him, his voice quiet and expressionless. Then, all but unexpectedly... he bowed his head in turn to Aelindas, rendering him speechless. ”You have my gratitude for saving my life.”

He stood upright again and allowed his head to tilt as he regarded the younger elf in front of him.

”And,” he continued then, his brows furrowing slightly, ”for taking care of Al’ar when I could not.”

Aelindas nodded - it was the only thing he could think of doing, the only thing that made any sense to do.

”I’ve brought it back to you, my prince.”

”Him,” Kael’thas corrected, although the corner of his mouth twitched with a suppressed smile, ”Though it is hard to tell.”

He finally stepped back from Aelindas, and the ranger realised he’d hardly breathed the whole time he’d stood so close. Power seemed to emanate from Kael’thas like heat, and it felt fitting, although no fire was to be seen. Kael’thas turned his gaze to Jaina, who stepped closer again, judging the situation between the two elves now thus resolved.

”I suppose he is here to explain your encounter with the Legion earlier today,” he spoke to her and her eyes flitted towards Aelindas, who raised his brows in surprise.

”That is why I invited him in,” Jaina confirmed.

”Then let us have another round of hot drinks - the weather all but demands it.”

With those words Kael’thas turned back to the corridor, and while Aelindas didn’t immediately follow, he felt Jaina’s fingers grip his still wet red sleeve and tug him forwards until he was moving in after her.

Well - that had most certainly gone better than anticipated, he thought.

*

What kind of a lapdog had Kael’thas become? After Jaina’s departure, the mansion felt like a maze that he was trapped inside of. She’d promised to be back as soon as she could, but it didn’t make her absence any easier to bear. Upstairs, the ranger was asleep - his presence did not make the solitude of the rest of the building any easier to bear. Rather, it was as if he was making it worse. He’d brought with him a piece of something past that Kael’thas now realised he’d attempted to bury this past week like he’d buried the mooncrystals, a responsibility that was much easier to speak of than it was to bear. He’d felt this way before, although under quite different circumstances: after arriving in Quel’Thalas in the wake of the destruction the Scourge had wrought upon it, the last thing he’d wanted was to take up the crown left to him by his fallen father. He’d wanted to mourn, but he’d had no time to; this reminded him of that time, and the reminder was most unwelcome. He’d had a whole week to himself to do nothing with but heal, and yet he felt as if he would have rather continued that existence. Had he given up completely? Whether he wanted it or not, he was still a prince, and his responsibilities or indeed the way he’d always lived would hardly come to an end even if he felt like his world had.

And yet, through that... his heart skipped a beat, and frustratedly he turned a page in his book although he hadn’t been reading for some time now. Like a child, he was now merely looking at the pictures - diagrams and sigils that meant nothing to his preoccupied mind. It was easier if he did not think of Jaina, or in specific, of why he was now so utterly restless in her absence. It did him no favours to be filled with this mixture of cold and pins and needles, like rolling in a field of shattered ice. His fingertips grew frigid in an instant at just the thought of a thought of what had transpired. His heart raced again. His cheeks flushed. He wanted to slam the book shut and scream at himself: get yourself back together, forget about it, focus on something important, but he couldn’t.

It felt... truly, it felt as if nothing was more important. His breath came out partially suppressed, a mere gasp of air in the room where magical songbirds chattered in the branches of trees that did not truly grow there. Outside, a storm raged still, now harder and darker than ever, but inside his bedroom the golden light of sun played upon the gilded leaves of whitebark trees and the fireplace crackled with flames licking eagerly at the logs set in the pit to sustain them. It was a perfect match for him: perhaps he appeared calm on the surface, but if one would have looked just beyond that... by the Sunwell, he was a mess and a half. Demons couldn’t hold a candle to Jaina Proudmoore. Indeed, he felt like he was much more prepared to face Kil’jaeden again than he was to stay here in the wait for Jaina to bring up what had happened between them before. In distress, Kael’thas pulled himself back on his feet. His robes fell heavy over his feet and shifted gently against the grass and small meadow flowers poking through the floortiles as he stepped anxiously across the room and to the hidden doorway one would hardly see unless its location was previously known to them. He needed a distraction; the storm would do well.

The mansion’s doors opened up to darkness that only lit up with heavy thunder and lightning across the ocean. Kael lifted his gaze to the raging clouds and muttered a spell that diverted the rainfall from him, and in its wake he could clearly see Al’ar perched upon the rooftop. He was a magnificent sight to behold - all fire, living flame that shone in a spectrum of golds and crimsons, bending like dawn’s first light in the long feathers and casting a glow like a raging blaze across the roof’s tiles, and yet he burned nothing that he didn’t choose to burn. His fire was a perfectly contained storm, a force that could veil itself into gentle warmth but always, always held the promise of devastation within. His vision brought comfort to Kael’thas. He’d barely had the chance to think of the phoenix... after, but even in his fogged, disoriented state he’d given the order to relocate its remains to safety for rebirth. ”Safety”, it appeared, had meant his injured ranger commander. If it hadn’t been for Al’ar, perhaps the man would now lie dead among the first fallen at Quel’Danas. His death would have hardly served a purpose there, and he’d taken good care of Al’ar, as the phoenix was now nearly as bright and brilliant as he had been when Kael had last seen him. The rage that had made its nest within Kael’s chest seemed to have subdued, as he couldn’t call upon it now even though he desperately wanted to; it was comforting, too, the feeling of righteous fury. He wanted to hate the Sunblade traitor for what he’d done, and yet he felt instead the burden of gratitude, even if the mark his arrow had left still ached in a draft. Without him, Kael would have never ended up here - without his lack of faith in the greater plan, Kael’thas would be dead now, and none of these past days would have come to pass.

Greater plan. Yes, Kil’jaeden’s plan. And how had that ended, for any of them? Kael had risen from the dead only by the grace of those who hadn’t believed in the cause to begin with. Hundreds were dead for no good reason that he could now believe, and hundreds of others lay injured, weakened and exiled for their loyalty to him, loyalty that he’d sold for empty promises. Others had died with their true nature twisted beyond recognition, with horns and wings sprouting from their once perfect elven bodies - he’d despised the changes in Illidan. He’d never wished that upon himself, or any of his people by extension. It was a cursed state of existence, marred and tainted by foul and impure magic, and yet he’d condoned and ordered such an existence upon his followers. His, or Kil’jaeden’s? _Now_ there was anger. He’d never been more than a gamepiece to use and discard. His motivations had never held any weight in the scale of Kil’jaeden’s plan. He’d used him, used his people, and for what?

For _what?_

Kael’thas raised his hand toward the sky and an ember sparked in it, engulfed by a flame that flickered in the wind. Al’ar stirred, his sharp eyes scanning the area at the familiar burst of arcane; then, the phoenix spread his vast wings and glided down from the rooftop, stirring up leaves and dirt from the wet ground around Kael’thas but never so much as touching him as he landed. Kael fed the ember to the bird and brushed his palm into his glowing feathers. Overcome with a weakness and exhaustion that he simply couldn’t endure, he leaned into Al’ar completely and let his body rest against his flaming form, his face burying amongst the feathers that caressed his skin with warmth. The phoenix was an embodiment of strong, ancient magic - the storm had no power over his fire, and Kael’thas held onto him for some time, breathing his peculiar scent in and out of his lungs, eyes closed and mind finally, blissfully empty of thought. Al’ar’s beak caressed his hair, chattering as he stroked through it like preening a baby bird, and as it went on Kael realised that he was all but starved for gentleness, for affection, for touch. Feeling his pet’s beak sorting through his hair made him feel at ease, as if soothing wounds within him that he hadn’t realised were still bleeding. 

He huffed into Al’ar’s feathers. Yes, he’d clearly become some kind of a lapdog, but how long had it been since he’d last gotten to enjoy this? His fingers shifted amongst the feathers, and Al’ar nipped at his ear before lifting his majestetic head again. Kael followed his gaze to the ocean and let go as the phoenix spread his wings, taking off in flight to circle the thunderstorm once more. Merely standing beside him had imbued Kael with some of the phoenix’s magic, and his warmth and unfaltering love for him had renewed something else within the elf prince, too. It was unquestioning, and the mighty elemental did not care about his shifting allegiances or his troubles or his status. He simply loved him for what he was, and for the things that they’d been through together. Al’ar did not ask for much; Kael’thas had already won his affection, and there was no breaking a bond like that.

It was calming, reassuring. People might let him down and he might - and had, and would - have to watch them turn on him, betray him, and disappoint him. He’d done all those things to others just the same. People were... complicated. Al’ar was not.

As he stood there, the storm around him ever raging but unable to so much as touch him, the bird circled the mansion and the boom of his call carried even over the thunder’s crack. Kael loved that sound, the hawk-like screech veiling the depth of a wildfire’s roar that followed. He closed his eyes to its echo, but once he opened them again he was no longer alone; Jaina stood there, golden sparks still fading about her shape from her teleportation spell, and she watched him with her mouth turned to a crooked and tired but warm smile. His heart, ever unreliable in her presence, once again seemed to stumble over itself in his chest. He bowed to her in greeting and she walked to him, her hand brushing against his even as she lifted the other to familiarize herself to the protective shield surrounding the mansion. Her gaze followed the phoenix up in the sky as it circled once more before dropping gracefully onto the rooftop.

”I know this must be a silly thought to think, but I can’t help but worry he has to get cold in this weather. A creature of living fire... and I still wish I had a room big enough for him to take shelter in,” she said.

”It’s in your nature to worry for other things,” Kael’thas told her, ”but to Al’ar, this storm is nothing. He prefers the open sky to any shelter; I kept him inside Tempest Keep with me and he was ever restless there even though he had a hall all to himself and the Keep was nothing if not grand in every respect. He could fly any which way inside it he wanted, and yet it couldn’t match freedom. He’ll take the thunder over being trapped within four walls, Jaina: in that respect he is different from us magi.”

Her smiled widened and she aimed her eyes at him again, taking a moment to simply regard him before nodding. She lowered her hand back to her side and turned for him, her arms slightly lifted in question. He let out a soft huff and lowered his head, closed his eyes and stepped into her; his arms wound around her and she did the same in turn, her soft scent enveloping him once more as her face pressed into the crook of his neck.

”I’m glad that you’re here,” she said.

”The feeling is mutual, I assure you,” he replied quietly, and they separated once more, if only by a small distance and their hands still remained on each other, Jaina’s over his waist and his over the backs of her arms.

She sighed with a nod.

”I think it’s time we talked,” she said after a moment’s silence filled with the white noise of rain around them and its incessant drumming against the roof and the walls and the windows of the mansion, ”about this morning.”

It felt like a death sentence, but Kael’thas nodded regardless.

”If you’re ready.”

”Are you?”

He found himself smiling and let a quiet chuckle through before shaking his head promptly.

”No,” he admitted.

”I don’t think I am, either,” Jaina mumbled, ”but it’s not going to go away before we do talk about it. I realised earlier today that I don’t think I will be any more ready or prepared tomorrow or next week or next year, so it’s best not to delay.”

”You speak as I feel,” Kael noted, ”Like this is something that will cause us both physical pain.”

She laughed, finally letting go of him.

”I do hope it will not,” she said.


	13. Conclusions

* * *

Perhaps it was too intimate, Jaina thought, to lock them in his bedroom together - but nowhere else felt isolated and secure enough for a conversation of this nature. He wouldn’t say it outright but she knew it was a sore subject for him either way and he didn’t want anyone knowing, no matter how much he’d implied he wasn’t ashamed of her, or outright told her he wouldn’t compromise when it came to his love for her. He had, of course, also told her that his people would always come first, but after Theramore Jaina knew exactly what he’d meant; it was something they’d have to talk about, should the conversation progress that far. She wasn’t sure where it would head yet. She hadn’t made up her mind or even cleared her head anywhere close enough to reach any conclusions on her own, but it wasn’t the first time she would enter negotiations uncertain of their outcome. Wasn’t that what communication was for - reaching conclusions?

She leaned to the door and closed it, rendering the magical scenery intact. The room now seemed boundless, like a real forest. Every time she entered it little things about it had changed. There were more branches poking out of what she knew were walls but couldn’t quite distinguish as such any longer, and the bed had started growing roots into the floor. She could distinctly hear the sound of a river somewhere further away, and when she sat on the edge of Kael’s bed her eyes met the hazy outline of a beautiful city in the distance with spiraling towers enveloped in arcane mist.

He sat beside her - a polite distance away, but still close enough for her to feel the mattress bending beneath his weight.

”I left out the Dead Scar,” Kael’thas said, ”but otherwise I want to believe I’ve created a convincing replica of one of the most beautiful places in the Eversong Woods just outside Silvermoon, our ancient capital city. Never thought I’d bring a bed to it, but the thought of falling asleep there has crossed my mind before, especially on warm and sunny days.”

Jaina nodded.

”Did you go there often?” she asked.

”Not as often as I would have liked,” Kael admitted. His eyes sought out the outline of the city and he watched it for a moment, enchanted birds flocking together above it and charging about in the chase of insects against the sunset. The sound of the storm outside the window had all but faded, Jaina noticed... like it had never existed at all. What remained were the sounds of birds and wind and the river. His magic was still impressive; had she woken up here without prior memory of it, nothing would have told her she was in a limited space and not out in the open woods.

”I suppose it has been a long time since you last had the chance,” Jaina said quietly. ”You spent so long in Dalaran, and then...”

Her voice faded, and Kael nodded.

”Perhaps Lor’themar will forgive me if I steal a visit every now and then,” he said with some bitterness, ”I’ve never thought him a cruel man, and he knows the love I hold for my lands.”

She looked at him and hurt for his sake, although she knew very well that he’d made his own choices that had led him here. Still... had they truly been choices? Would she have fared any better in his place? Perhaps she would have chosen her allies more wisely, but... not all too many had been left for him to pick from. She knew enough of what Garithos had done to know how Kael’thas had ended up in the company he’d kept since, although she felt that much of that story was lost to her, and she’d have to hear his side of it before long to truly understand what had driven him to his choices. Now wasn’t the time, however; she wasn’t ready for it, her heart wasn’t ready for it, and she was certain he didn’t wish to bring it up any more than she did, so she shut those thoughts out of her mind and focused on her surroundings and the pleasant tingle of magic that lingered everywhere about her. To her surprise she could recognise it as partially her own, although the creation certainly was not - some of it was her magic, her mana that had shaped these illusions upon the room. It was a strange realisation, but along with it she noted that she didn’t feel quite so weak tonight as she usually did at this hour.

”Have you...” she started, but didn’t quite know how to ask it, so she started again. ”How are you feeling?”

He turned to her, his expression one of mild surprise or confusion.

”Quite well, Jaina. Thanks to you,” he said, replacing the surprise on his features with a polite smile.

”I don’t feel like you’re relying on me much anymore.”

Kael shook his head.

”No. I regret to say I can’t quite cut you loose yet, but... I feel much better. And...”

He hesitated, trying to find the right words. It seemed to embarrass him, and Jaina understood he didn’t want her to think him weak.

”I’m so glad to hear that you’re feeling so well,” she said, relieving him of the need to finish his sentence.

He nodded gratefully.

”I don’t wish to burden you,” he began then, his expression darkening somewhat. ”I understand that I am that - a great burden and an unnecessary, dangerous secret to keep. The fact that you were set upon by servants of the Legion today only serves to prove as much.”

”Oh, Kael - I made this choice for myself. Nevertheless I did my best to instruct my guards to be on the lookout, and I don’t think most of them knew to question exactly why I’ve suddenly become a target again. Only my bodyguard, Pained, seems to be somewhat suspicious. I don’t quite know how to ease her suspicions, but it is a problem for me to deal with later.”

Jaina swallowed and sucked back on her lower lip before continuing.

”Don’t feel too guilty for this. Or do you think I would rather have you dead? You were a dear friend to me, and an excellent guide, and as I said you have always been kind and good to me. Of course I would rather help you than see you suffer and worse. I knew it was dangerous before I took you in and I could have refused, but now you are here and I do not wish for you to leave before you are well and have a path you can follow, so that you will never have to find yourself alone again.”

She fixed her gaze upon him and he answered it, his expression once more unreadable but focused, and she found herself content with the answer he was giving her with his silence that let her speak her mind.

”I know we have let you down,” she continued then, ”I know my people have let you down, that the Alliance has, and that when you needed us the most we all but turned on you. I know that I’m but one woman, but you’ve always, always made an exception for me. Even when I didn’t deserve it! Who was I when you granted me your attention and your patience? No one! I was a foolish little girl, you said it yourself, I was naïve and hardly that much of a mage, I was never special, but you saw something in me that you believed in.”

”As did Antonidas,” Kael’thas noted softly.

”Yes,” Jaina said and smiled, nodding, ”But I had to work hard to convince him I had potential.”

Her smile caught on him and he lowered his gaze.

”Oh, Jaina, he always knew you had potential. He was only looking to see if you had the determination to match it.”

She felt a rush of fondness like a wave within her at the thought of her late mentor, and how good he’d been to her, too. She deny that Kael’s words made her feel the distinctive tinge of pride as well - pride in herself for proving herself worthy of becoming an apprentice to the archmage. Without Antonidas, even with Kael’s help, she would have never become half the spellcaster she was now, and less than half the politician. Their eyes met again and Kael’thas lifted his hand, his finger catching her hair and brushing it between his fingertips before setting it behind her ear. She tilted her head and squinted at him quite playfully - she was almost certain he’d acted without thinking, without realising what he was doing, and indeed as she watched him realisation seemed to dawn upon his features and he all but blushed, turning from her. She huffed softly and brought her own fingers into his hair, and it felt much stronger, thicker than her own when she picked it up and carried it behind his long, pointy ear, unveiling his elegant features. Touching him still made her hold her breath. She’d never thought of doing so, never had the guts to so much as consider it, but it seemed to come more naturally now. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore, she realised. She’d seen him at his worst. What was there to uncover anymore? What more could she show to him that he hadn’t already seen of her - she’d nearly set him on fire! The same went for him; she’d seen him at his weakest moment, and he’d given her his worst, surely. If those were the words he’d use to hurt her, and she’d given him the chance to hurt her with his magic, too, then she truly had nothing at all to fear from him. He was soft and vulnerable to her, and he trembled when she touched him, even now. Curiously she let her fingertips run the length of his ear, certain that it was an urge that every human had considered fulfilling once or twice in their lives but that she had always, of course, resisted. It was hardly polite to reach out to touch someone simply to sate pointless curiosity, but she was surprised at how smooth it was - how easily it bent under her lightest touch. His eyes turned for her but he didn’t move, simply examined her as she bent his ear and gave him a half-apologetic, half-teasing smirk as she let it bounce back up and then retreated her hand.

”I couldn’t help it,” she said.

”Our children do that,” he told her as he lifted his head, brushing back the remaining hair on the side she’d exposed and tucked it with the rest. ”Pull and tug at them, and their own. Other races seem to have that same desire, even yours.”

”Are you calling me a child again?” she asked, faking offense.

”No,” he stated simply, unconcerned. ”You are a fine young woman now, but a woman nonetheless. I wouldn’t think any less of you. You’ve grown much since we last met - it has surprised me somewhat.”

”Yet it seems that my aging has not bothered you,” Jaina pointed out, her voice deceiving her intent to reroute their conversation to what she’d brought them here for in the first place. Her heart beat a little faster with nerves at the subject change.

”No,” Kael’thas said again. ”I find myself rather impressed, and very... very fond of it as well.”

His eyes flashed, and then he turned his gaze away, shifting nervously. He placed his hands on his lap and brought his fingers together, his long nails tracing over his skin. They were not hands made for touching another with gentleness, Jaina thought, and then scolded herself for thinking it, as if he could have heard her and - and what? Thought it was too bold of her to imagine his hands on her? Wasn’t that what they were here to discuss?

She found herself tensing, and to relieve that tension she picked up her feet and crossed her legs, adjusting the loose, fine pants she was wearing so that they didn’t pull tightly over her body. Suddenly she felt quite... alone, quite exposed here, and wondered whether she should have taken the conversation back to the kitchen where it had started, just in case.

”You know that I will continue to do so,” she said, her voice hesitant and distant. ”To grow older, and older, and older... and that I will die, and it will be very soon for you no matter how old I live to be.”

”I am very much aware of this,” Kael’thas replied, his voice as unreadable as his expression once more had grown to be. ”Humans have limited lifespans - in comparison.”

She nodded.

”I will be quite ugly by the end,” she said then, trying to catch his eye and smiling jokingly, her voice lighter, ”And wrinkly and spotted and balding, and my hair will be grey and my voice will be stretched and thin and nagging.”

He looked back at her, sharp brows lifting - and then she got a smile out of him, a wide one, and he shook his head.

”I know,” he said.

”It will be as if next week to you,” she continued, trying to suppress her grin, ”And you’ll very soon question why you ever thought I was charming, or attractive, and you’ll forget me for some eternally beautiful, slender young elf girl, I am sure.”

”I doubt that very much.”

Kael’thas shifted, bringing his leg up on the bed and turning to face her. His expression was serious although she was still smiling, but it wasn’t intimidating or demanding her seriousness, merely pressing his own words.

”Jaina, you are not charming because you are beautiful. I will not deny that you are - if I had no shame I would never lift my eyes from you, I could get lost in your beauty for a day or a week and never grow tired of seeing you again. Yet... beauty alone is quite mundane, it is most boring when you are raised surrounded by nothing but. Quel’Thalas is beautiful. Silvermoon is beautiful. Our spires and every room I ever walked in was beautiful. My people are beautiful. It is nothing to me if not the everyday state of things. Your beauty, therefore, is not why I find you so... uniquely - so captivating.”

He reached his hand for hers and she let him pick it up, and his touch was warm and his nails quite sharp, and she had to work harder to suppress the smile that the feeling only seemed to encourage.

”Then what is it?” she said, her voice more playful than she’d perhaps intended. ”Oh, don’t stop now - I haven’t been complimented like this in years.”

His seriousness faltered a little and he shook his head, sighing.

”I find your company, at its purest, the most pleasant thing about you. Simply being around you has always filled me with... wonder, perhaps; I hardly have words to describe it. You have a way of being, a way to be always curious, always looking for a challenge, and you are so full of life it reminds me of what it feels like to live and not simply be alive. You have a mind that I have always admired, even when your skills were still unrefined and your magic clumsy. You would never stop working your hardest to learn more, and you would never stop exploring the world around you and all the knowledge it could offer you. It is that boundless desire to experience and live every day to its fullest potential that makes you different to anybody else I have met - even when you appear to be doing nothing at all to the outside eye, you are no doubt ceaselessly working at something inside your mind. It is that which makes you so special to me.”

His words made her fall silent. She didn’t know what to say to it - truly, it had taken her by surprise. Somehow she’d always thought her appeal to him had to be superficial, but what he spoke made sense in a way she’d never considered. He was right: beauty was nothing out of the ordinary for an elf. It wasn’t her appearance that made her special to him. Realising this... it warmed her. It gave her goosebumps.

”And,” he added then, his voice vibrant with the tone of admitting something he perhaps hadn’t planned for, ”your perspective always challenges me, and you are never afraid of speaking your mind to me when you disagree. So many people treat me as if I am a god that sometimes I forget that I am not. Not you! You will give me your mind whether I ask for it or not. I don’t need an echo chamber, a room full of advisors whose advice to me is to do exactly what I please and how I please. Look where that has gotten me. No, I need people like you to remind me that I’m fallible, and my perspective is very limited indeed. Perhaps I might yet learn from it.”

”Oh, I am afraid,” Jaina said, her reply more serious now. ”Who am I to address a prince? Who am I to speak over a superior mage? But it has never and I hope that it _will_ never stop me from speaking when I must. The only thing I wish for is that I am heard when I do so, that my voice will carry even though I am perhaps not in any position to be listened to. I do not wish to control you or anybody else, we all make our own decisions, but often I find that those in power do exactly as they please and exactly how they please without considering the true and full consequences of those actions, or indeed... that people different to them are still people as well.”

She had a pleading look in her eyes when she watched him and couldn’t help but feel relieved when he considered her words thoroughly before responding. His grip of her hand grew tighter for a fleeting moment and finally he smiled again, nodding.

”We couldn’t be more different, you and I,” he said quietly.

”And yet you tolerate me and my silly views,” she replied.

”Who else would speak them to me?” he asked, ”Who else has the courage that you do? No, Jaina, I do not find myself too fearful of the future you’ve painted for yourself. Even with grey hair and shaking hands and aches and a bad memory you no doubt will find it in you to challenge me each day. I hope to be there for that future, and all of your years to come. Nothing would pain me more than losing the opportunity to see who you will one day become.”

”Hopefully no one very important,” Jaina sighed, ”Leading the people of Theramore is enough for me.”

”Then I am eager to see the future of Theramore, with your hard work and conscience guiding it.”

She felt a bit in her throat and struggled to keep herself from tearing up again. His words meant much to her - merely the fact that he seemed to sincerely believe she had it in her to lead like he’d been raised to, even on a much smaller scale. There was no doubt or falsehood in his voice that she could detect, nor was there any in the way he regarded her now. It was her turn to hold his hand tighter.

”I wish I could show it to you,” she said, her voice strained by emotion although she tried to speak clearly. ”It’s not much and certainly nothing when compared to your kingdom, but it is very dear to me, and it is, in its own way, a very beautiful town with a beautiful view of the ocean.”

”It is yours,” he stated calmly, ”and so, it matters to me as well.”

She couldn’t take it anymore, so she turned her gaze away from him and, after brief hesitation, landed on her back on the bed with her eyes viewing the bright sky broken into dusk’s many colours behind a canopy of golden leaves and silvery branches. He followed her down, and for a moment she found herself tensing again yet he did nothing to approach her, merely turned on his back and let out a sigh as his body relaxed over the bed. Together they stared at the enchanted ceiling for some time in silence without moving and with their hands now parted, Jaina’s resting over her stomach, rising and falling in rhythm with her breathing.

”What about your people?” she asked then. She felt nervous. In truth, she hadn’t really thought of getting far enough to ask this question - it carried so much more weight, so many implications, that she barely dared to voice it at all. ”How would the proud sin’dorei feel if their prince loved a wrinkly old witch?”

He shrugged, his gesture leaving the sheets wrinkled and his golden hair even further spread underneath him.

”They don’t seem to think so highly of me anyway,” he said in a colourless voice, ”What is it to them should I reveal the true depth of my depravity? I did promise you I’d make you my queen.”

He turned to look at her and a small, ironic smile lingered on his lips.

”It is a taboo,” he continued then, sighing, ”Not one that I haven’t upheld myself, perhaps out of shame for how I truly felt within. I could never escape my feelings for you, after all, so I had to do my best to deny them and make others believe I couldn’t possibly feel that way, even if I couldn’t convince myself.”

She nodded. The leaves above them rustled in a breeze that she couldn’t feel: the air inside the room was still. A part of her wanted desperately to go further... to ask questions she needed answers to, but she wasn’t brave enough for it, or indeed prepared enough to speak them. How could she? She’d only considered him for a single day, and a future... a whole future with him was a concept that truly and fully terrified her. She wasn’t sure if that should have been a warning sign, but when she looked at him, her fear calmed somewhat. That, at least, she knew to be a good thing.

She cleared her throat and closed her eyes, preparing to speak fast, as the faster she’d speak the faster the words would be over. She’d tried them once before, innocently and without concern, and they’d made her whole world collapse then.

”What about a family?” she asked, ”Any children I could bear for you would be half-elves.”

He turned, she could hear him move, and then she could feel his warmth radiating across the remaining distance between them and indeed the air moving against her hair as he breathed. He was quiet for a long time before speaking.

”The thought scares you,” he said then, avoiding the question.

She forced her eyes open. She felt cold now and shook her head.

”No,” she replied dully, ”It’s not the thought that scares me. It’s the question. It’s the weight it bears. It’s -”

How could she tell him? How could she tell him of Arthas? She was so afraid of being rejected that way again - even by Kael, whom she wasn’t even sure she truly wanted yet. She let out a long breath and steadied herself.

”You think I haven’t thought of it?” Kael asked her gently, even if the question was clearly rhetoric. ”That I didn’t before, when I realised how much I really loved you? No, Jaina, I have thought of it - the heirs you would give my bloodline, and how others would regard them, or regard me for having children with you. I decided then that I didn’t care, and although I’ve had to take my role more seriously since, I find myself... still not caring all too much. If you would carry a child for me, what would I care what that child would be? Who would I be to deem them lesser, to think badly of something that was born out of you and me, of our union? Let others think what they will, it means nothing to me now, and it most certainly would not should you wish for a child from me.”

Jaina turned to look at him very slowly, as if afraid she might break apart if she did so faster and without preparing fully beforehand. She had tears in her eyes now and she didn’t know what to do with them, so she blinked them away and turned on her side and curled up closer to him, feeling his arm slide over her side and pull her more firmly against him.

”Not yet,” she mumbled against him, ”I've barely found myself here with you yet. But I don't want uncertainty, and - maybe one day.”

”Maybe one day.”

And so... it seemed she’d made her decision.


	14. Epilogue

* * *

  
The ships were sailing to Northrend. Kael’thas felt a hollowness inside as he watched them and how easily the ocean let them through, how effortlessly they surfed towards their destination. There were so many, carrying an army no doubt - they were far away but still clearly visible against the sunlit horizon, although even in daylight the sea lifted its typical light mist to veil them, making them ghostly in appearance. Alliance ships, he could just barely tell from the way the gold glinted against sunlight.

The sea sprayed him, and Jaina shifted over him, her breath catching and then releasing slowly. She brought her legs back on the rock and hugged them, her back moving off Kael’s chest, but his fingers stayed on her sleeve and kept caressing her arm through the light fabric of her shirt. She’d stolen this moment from her responsibilities, perhaps afraid he’d mount Al’ar and fly after the ships if she didn’t babysit him. The thought had crossed his mind multiple times by now. His veins were burning for it. And yet, he found himself staying on this wet rock, even though the sea itself seemed to be reaching for him.

”You’re thinking of him,” he stated, surprised at the lack of outright bitterness in his tone. It had been so long when he hadn’t been angry first and anything else only after acting, when he hadn’t had to suppress his first reaction to prevent himself from making rash decisions. The thought of her lingering upon the memory and most certainly the present of Arthas Menethil should have enraged him, and yet he felt nothing in particular.

They were both thinking of the bastard. So be it, then; at least they did so together.

”I am,” she said, her gaze and voice directed towards the ocean. She hugged herself more tightly, becoming smaller, and Kael’s hand climbed further over her to pull her back into him.

She submitted, although tensely; when she was there, however, her body relaxed once more and she leaned her head over his shoulder, her eyes flitting towards the blue skies.

”And you,” she added.

”And me?”

She nodded.

”Where will you go next?” she asked the clouds, and he looked down at her to his best ability from the angle she’d brought herself in. Her eyes were so deep blue against the sky above that they seemed to reflect the depth of the sea beside them. He wished he could have read her thoughts, but her expression was far away and locked from his prying.

”Surely you’re not content to live your life on this island.”

”Surely you’re not content having me as a pet,” Kael’thas pointed out.

The corner of her mouth poked upwards. He sighed and let his eyes upon the ships again. They were quickly fading out of sight, their path bringing them around the Eastern Kingdoms and ever towards the north.

”I suppose I have to prove myself to others next,” he said then, speaking quietly so that the ocean sometimes overcame the smooth thoughtfulness of his voice, ”To Lor’themar Theron first and foremost. I do not plan to spend the rest of my life in exile, nor do I wish to stay in this mansion forever, Jaina. It will be difficult. The path to redemption - yes, it will be difficult, and I barely know where to start. However... you asked me whether I would care for what the sin’dorei think of my love for you. I have, similarly, thought of what would come of you should you ever make known what has transpired between us.”

She nodded.

”I can’t expect and I can’t _accept_ hiding forever, so I must, naturally, crawl out of my shelter sooner rather than later. Perhaps we will have to admit that you aided me, but only in due time. As for what we’ve spoken of - let us keep it for now, for your sake more than mine, although I’m sure if it endures then it cannot be kept hidden forever. I do intend to change things, Jaina; I don’t wish for you to have to hide in shame at my mention. I find it unlikely that what fondness you have for me would long survive those conditions.”

She turned, her knee dropping on his and her hands settling on her lap. Her eyes seemed to retain some of the sunlight they’d seeped into them from her sky-watching as she looked at him and he had to catch his breath to endure the sharpness of her examining look.

”I will speak for you,” she stated, ”but I cannot do much more. My voice carries some minor importance, I know many people who would listen if only out of obligation, but I’m afraid it won’t be nearly enough to clear your name. Forgive me, but even I don’t think that it should. Perhaps you’ve shown me a change here, but you owe everyone you’ve hurt the same, everyone who feels betrayed by you, and even I - Kael’thas, even I have to see who you become next before I can promise my future to you and mean it.”

He nodded, feeling a shadow cross him. The ships had passed now, leaving nothing but the waves in their wake. The ocean seemed to go on forever.

”I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he said, his voice still low enough to fade in the waves. It grew somewhat when he continued, however. ”And so, I should start soon enough that I stand a chance at providing some aid to Rommath eventually. Certainly the war that has now started will go on for some time.”

”So you hope.”

”I do,” Kael admitted, ”But you must understand.”

Hesitantly she nodded. Her gaze returned to the sea and a darkness came over her, too, that he wanted to dispel desperately, yet the call of what he had to do was stronger than even his will to comfort her. Instead he chose to reach out to her, his hand first resting over her arm and when she didn’t react, lifted for her face; he caressed her cheek with the back of his palm and turned her back for him, eyes keen upon hers.

”Jaina,” he spoke her name with all the tenderness he held for it, ”May I ask you for one more favour?”

She drew in a long breath and let it out in an exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes.

”Yes, your majesty, you may. But only one more. I’m running out of favours for the day.”

He smiled crookedly.

”This is a big one,” he warned her.

”Yes, as they all are.”

He nodded, then waited for some time before speaking his will.

”Would you serve as my conscience for me in the times to come, so that I could name you as my advisor?”

”May I revoke my permission, should you choose not to listen?” she asked in return, but he could tell from her expression that she was taken aback by the request.

”Of course. And I will not insist should you see to deem me a lost cause one day,” he agreed.

It seemed to reassure her, and promptly, she nodded with decision.

”I will do what I can to help you. You are stubborn, though. Don’t expect me to hold my tongue.”

”Quite the contrary, I expect you to speak your mind as you will at all times. I could use a firm voice at my side now that Rommath has promised his services elsewhere. Without one, I seem to get lost quite easily.”

Jaina fought valiantly for a brief moment, but the battle was lost soon after - she broke into a smile and shook her head, falling back into him. Her eyes peered at him from below and he stroked her hair, wishing he could take this moment and keep it safe forever so that he’d never have to forget exactly how she looked there with her gaze on him with no trace of hesitation in the way she smiled.

”Remember that above all other things I am the Lady of Theramore,” she told him then, her fingers reaching up to play in his hair. ”I can’t be at your side all the time.”

”And so we must rely on the written word,” he said calmly, leaning his head into her touch.

”Do not keep things from me, then. Write them as they are. Only then I can help you.”

Kael’thas nodded.

”I will not lie to you. And how could I?”

He let his eyes back on the horizon and thought for a moment, focusing on her warmth on him and the way sunlight played upon them and the waves before them. The sea sprayed at them again: he could feel drops of water on his face and trickling down his robes.

”Perhaps it will be sooner than you think that I can visit you in your fair city,” he noted then.

”And perhaps it will finally be time for me to accept the invitation to visit yours.”

She moved again, covering his view of the seas... and kissed him, her hand slipping over the back of his head and her fingers tangling in his hair. With her light in his life, he’d surely have no choice but to relearn what it was like to be happy once more. The thought warmed him as he returned the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for sticking through my first Warcraft story! Please be kind, this was very much a spur of the moment dive, as I had no idea what to write for NaNoWriMo but had to come up with a concept last second. I had a lot of fun writing and researching this story and I hope it delivered some of that joy to you as well - if it didn't, hey, at least you read a lot!


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